


Box of Chocolates

by justkeeponwriting



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Attempt at Humor, Best Friends, Community: deancasbigbang, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2014, F/F, F/M, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Gay Panic, M/M, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2667866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkeeponwriting/pseuds/justkeeponwriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through a series of odd happenings, it becomes increasingly clear that the universe is determined to get Dean and Cas together. Dean very much disagrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I, Scene 1

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** So, I was going to make my first long fic in this fandom something _ah-mazing_ and unique (like everyone, right), but then I wrote 29K words of making fun of high school fic clichés that I secretly love. …I’m sorry.
> 
>  **A/N2:** My original artist went missing, but instead, the lovely appleblossomdean stepped in and made [this picset](http://appleblossomdean.tumblr.com/post/103920056969/box-of-chocolates-justkeeponwriting) for the story. Thank you so so much! Also, I was lucky enough to get three very awesome people to beta this – [appleblossomdean](http://appleblossomdean.tumblr.com) (whose comments were numerous and very helpful), [goshcas](http://goshcas.tumblr.com) (who saved me from some embarrassing mistakes) and [trulyamindlost](http://trulyamindlost.tumblr.com) (who hasn’t even seen SPN, so a gold star for putting up with my nonsense, dear). Seriously, a huge thank you to all awesome betas, and with that said: all remaining mistakes are my own. Thank you for reading in advance! <3

[[x](http://appleblossomdean.tumblr.com/post/103920056969/box-of-chocolates-justkeeponwriting)]

 

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that it all starts when Dean notices the pretty redhead that has just transferred to their school. She’s helplessly trying to open her new locker that is situated just a few lockers to the right from Dean’s, and since Dean has come to bury his Math books back in at the back of his locker for the week, he can’t help but notice her. (The lockers are notorious for getting jammed, and from the way she’s not kicking and screaming murder at it he gathers that she clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing.) In reality, Dean meeting the new student is hardly the weirdest thing that will happen to him during that frustratingly slow first week of senior year, much less the weirdest thing that will happen to him during that frustratingly slow senior year. Later, he muses that this is the starting point that finally tips the scale into the all-out madness that follows.

That very particular moment, though, he just figures that this is his chance to get to know the new pretty girl by rescuing her from the horrifying clutches of her locker, and he doesn’t think twice about striding over to her.

“Can I help you with that?” he asks. She stops trying to whirl her combination into the lock, and looks up at him. “These things get stuck all the time. You just gotta—” Dean punches the space just below the lock, and it suddenly clicks and the locker jumps open, “Like that.”

“Oh,” the girl says, smiling in gratitude. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have figured that out myself.”

“No problem,” Dean says, and flashes his biggest grin at her. She smiles right back at him, and Dean feels like this year is maybe not going to suck as much as he feared.

“I’m Anna,” she says, and were he a more creative man, Dean would wax poetry about the way her hair shines in the morning sun and how intensely she looks at him.

“Dean,” he says instead, as he offers his hand and they exchange smiles and handshakes. Dean doesn’t usually do that with people of his age, but with Anna, he suddenly feels compelled to, and they silently observe each other based on the handshake. Anna’s hand is cold against Dean’s, but there’s warmth and firmness in the shake that makes up for it, and Dean decides that he likes it.

Anna draws her hand back after a moment, and continues to smile brightly at Dean. It is so encouraging that Dean doesn’t have a single doubt that this will turn out to be a very good day indeed.

“So,” Dean grins, “You’re new. Where’d you move from?”

Anna laughs. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Kinda figured from the way you were fighting with your locker.”

“I’ll remember to kick it the next time,” Anna says, and smiles brightly again.

Anna, as it turns out, has indeed just moved to Lawrence from some small town in Nebraska that Dean has never heard of – Anna laughs at his attempts to mask his ignorance, and Dean silently curses himself.

Smooth, Winchester.

“You’re not the first one to pull that face,” Anna says, and smiles again – it seems that her lips are always curved into a small smile, no matter how little. It’s somewhat creepy, but mostly soothing. “It’s okay, only those who’ve lived there know it. The population is like, five-thousand people, tops.”

They talk a little about the differences between Anna’s former high school and this new one. Although Dean is curious to know why on earth Anna moved here, apparently to live with her extended family, he senses that it’s not a great topic to approach. Instead, he asks about her classes, and learns that they even share some, although he has never taken a note of her before.

“I usually sit in the front row,” Anna says, and Dean ducks his head sheepishly – he sits in the back and avoids the front row like plague. Besides, it’s not like he’s even awake most of time in History class.

“Well, I’m glad to finally meet you,” he says, and Anna’s smile softens even more at that, if that was even possible.

The bell rings, and they both jerk back into reality; people start to move around them, but they stand still, both a little confused how to go on from here.

Dean seizes the chance when he has it. “Look, Anna, I know this is sudden, but would you like to go for coffee some time, or, something?”

Anna’s eyes widen at this, and Dean tries to pull the puppy-eyed look he used to be good at, at least according to his mother. It’s only the third day of the new term, but Dean is already bored, and Anna is a welcome distraction. (And a hot one at that.)

“Dean, I’d love to, but…” Anna’s fingers nervously curl around her bag, and Dean braces himself for the inevitable – she already has a boyfriend somewhere, possibly at her last school, and that’s that. However, what comes out throws Dean completely off-guard.

“Are you sure Castiel wouldn’t mind?”

For a second Dean is sure that he misheard or missed the few crucial seconds of their conversation where the topic somehow shifted to include Cas as well, because as far as he is aware, his best friend hasn’t even been mentioned before – hell, he didn’t even know that Anna knew Cas. He blinks at her inquisitive expression, and realizes that he must’ve heard right: Cas is suddenly a part of their conversation, though completely non-sequitur.

“Uh,” he eloquently says, “Why would Cas mind?”

Then she drops the bomb, and Dean’s mind goes blank. “Well, aren’t you two…?”

In other circumstances, Dean would laugh, maybe get annoyed that she can’t even bring herself to finish the sentence, but right now, he’s just utterly confused.

“What?” he barks, a little too loudly, making a few heads turn. “Cas and I aren’t a couple!”

“Oh,” Anna says, and smiles a little then, apparently relieved. Dean just stares at her, dumbfounded, and her smile falters. They’re trapped in an awkward situation where Dean should now just brush her earlier concerns aside with a laugh and say instead, “it’s weird you though that, but anyway, when can I pick you up?” She should apologize, blush for her misinformation and laugh a little, then name the place and the time.

Instead, Dean misses his chance by just staring at her until her smile disappears completely and finally, she coughs, clearly uncomfortable.

“Er, it’s fine, Dean. I’m sorry for… assuming.” She forces herself to look at his eyes and steps aside, ending the conversation. “I’ll see you around.”

Anna disappears into the crowd, and although Dean is going to be late to his Geography class at this rate, he can’t bring himself to move for another moment.

What the hell just happened and who has been spreading lies about him and Cas?

 

* * *

 

Lawrence, Kansas, is two things in Dean’s mind. For one, it’s boring. The town itself isn’t that small – not everyone knows everyone, and it’s fairly easy to blend into the crowd if you want, but people tend to get stuck with the friendships they’ve made and the social circles they’ve established. For example, Dean’s known the people he’s been friends with most of his life, and with a few exceptions, almost all have been there since his early childhood.

And, because of that, in Dean’s mind, Lawrence is also predictable. The small circles mean that nothing ever really changes. It’s easy to foretell what’s going to happen, because, as stated, nothing ever seems to change. The same people get caught up in the rumor mill of Lawrence High, the same people change girlfriends or boyfriends or get into fights or get into detention, and the same people try to rebel until they give up and stuff themselves into their molds again.

This is exactly why it makes no sense to him at all to suddenly be involved in the rumor mill, and paired with _Cas_ , of all people. Dean doesn’t think he’s done anything at all to disrupt anyone’s social status, nor does he recall Cas doing that, either. Cas would be the last person to do that, actually. He’s so invested in his books and his own little world that he probably couldn’t even name three people at the school outside of his immediate circle of friends.

“Wow,” Pamela Barnes says when Dean finally shows up at Geography, only a few minutes late. It’s not like his tardiness matters, because the teacher isn’t there yet. “You look like someone ran over your dog.”

“I don’t have a dog.” It’s a weak deflection attempt, but Pamela, bless her, takes it. Dean slumps down and drops his books on the desk. Pam leans towards him, smiling brightly and giving him a teasing, flirty look, like she always does when she knows that Jesse McAvoy is watching. She’s one of Dean’s best friends, although right up until now, Dean was under the impression that everyone and their mother thought that he and Pam were dating, when in reality, they’re just friends. Rumors about Dean and Pam dating would make sense to him: they’re always together, they’re both shameless flirts, and they’ve even made out once, in eight grade. It didn’t lead to anything, but most people don’t know that.

Dean shakes his head, and Pam retreats, frowning a bit at Dean’s mood. “You seen Cas today?”

“Sure,” Pam says, raising her elegant brows. “He’s in Math right now. You know that.”

“Whatever.”

Pam regards him curiously. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I mean… yeah. Nothing to worry about.”

Pam seems as though she wants to continue roasting Dean with questions, but right then, the teacher walks in, and Dean is saved. He thinks about Anna for a few more seconds, and then dismisses it just as quickly. Whatever. So she got is wrong. It’s nothing to worry about.

He’s sure it won’t come up again. Everything always goes back normal, anyway.

 

* * *

 

Dean goes through the motions of the day, only waking up from his self-induced coma when lunchtime arrives. Lunch is the only hour he shares with Cas that day, as well as the only time he can sit with all of his friends. There’s an odd logic to their seating that has been formed over the years, based on their relationships, although no one’s willing to point that out loud. They always sit at a round table in the corner of the cafeteria (that way there’s as little traffic to their direction as possible), and always in the same order: Dean, with Cas to his left, Jo to Dean’s right (with the honor of being his childhood friend and first “girlfriend” – though Jo is always quick to add, “we were six, Dean, it doesn’t count”), then Pam next to Jo, and finally, Ash between Pam and Cas. This is because Cas is almost always reading when he eats, and the only one who’s usually interested in what Cas reads about happens to be Ash. It never ceases to be funny to all the others that despite so different appearances, Cas and Ash get along perfectly and simultaneously have such conflicting personalities that by all accounts, they should be at each other’s throats constantly.

All the others are already sitting at the table when Dean and Pam finally arrive. Pam instantly sits down next to Jo, but Dean stops to take a mock bow in Jo’s direction.

“Princess,” Dean says. Jo throws a fry at him.

“You should be glad she doesn’t have her knives with her,” Pam notes.

“Eh, she’d miss me then, too.” Dean sits down, at his ordinary place next to Cas. Cas doesn’t acknowledge his presence at all, but that’s not worrisome, because he’s immersed in a book as he eats. Dean spares a single glance at the text, sees the words “prime numbers” and “Fermat’s theorem,” and instantly turns back to his food.

“She couldn’t hit a face like this,” he says, pursing his lips in Jo’s direction.

“I think I just lost my appetite,” Jo comments, despite immediately attacking her food afterwards.

“Anyone up to sacrificing their precious time for a movie today?” Pam asks, which instantly shifts the conversation. Jo isn’t interested – she says there’s nothing interesting showing, while Dean tries to convince her that the point isn’t the quality of the movie, but the company (and the popcorn, but mostly the company). Cas and Ash ignore them and continue their own, silent discussion.

“It’s not that,” Jo says. She finishes her meal and throws the paper napkin on the tray. “I’m still grounded.”

“I thought you only got a week?” Pam asks.

“Mom checked the odometer and realized that I took the car without asking.” She grimaces. “Again.”

“Well, you know, if you would just ask her—” Dean quickly shuts his mouth when Jo shoots him a look that plainly says, “one more word and I’m going to carve your eyes out with a spoon.” Jo’s relationship with her mother is rocky at best and fiery at worst, which probably steams from the fact that they’re both stubborn (but vehemently deny that) and live in a small apartment with no other people around. Dean sometimes feels like his house is too small for him, Sammy, and their parents, and it’s a damn three-bedroom house with a white picket fence and a neatly mowed lawn. Jo lives with just her mom in the upstairs level of the bar that Ellen owns. It’s no wonder that they’re both as tense as piano strings.

“That’s fine.” Pam says, saving Dean from the impending apocalypse that is one scorned Jo Harvelle. “You’re allowed to have guests, right? I can just pick up some DVDs from my house.”

When Jo and Pam start to argue about what movies to watch – Pam votes for _Psycho_ , for the millionth time, but Jo shoots it down and says that she wants to watch something new – Dean’s focus drifts. He’s listening to their conversation and trying to remember what movies he’s got that Jo and Pam haven’t seen yet, when he notices a pair of petite girls making their way towards their table. This is out of the ordinary, because their table is out of the way, and unless someone is specifically coming their direction or the long table next to them, there’s no reason for anyone to wander this way. A quick glance at the long table next to them confirms that it’s full of people, but maybe the girls saw some of their friends and just wanted to say hi? Dean turns back to Jo and Pam, ignoring the girls. That’s when he hears a soft giggle, and looks up again.

The two girls are looking directly at him. Dean blinks in confusion, and then shoots them a nervous grin, just to be on the safe side. Dean doesn’t know them – he thinks they’re probably sophomores, though he can’t be sure – but it never hurts to be nice, right? The girls erupt in another giggle fit, which is now starting to simply grate on Dean. Their laughter is so loud that Pam and Jo falter in their conversation, and Ash pauses his eating, just as confused. It doesn’t escape even Cas’s ears: Cas lifts his head from the book, looking like a deer in headlights for one second, before remembering where he is, and his eyes relax into the usual, slight squint.

“They’re so cute together!” the other girl says, and the other nods.

Dean has no idea what the hell just happened, and he doesn’t get the chance to voice this thought, because suddenly the girls hurry along, and disappear in the crowd.

“That was odd,” Cas comments.

“You don’t say,” Dean says.

“Turn down your charm before the panties start flying, Winchester,” Pam laughs. “Anyway, we decided on _Sex and The City_. Interested?”

“You know what, I think Cas needs to tutor me in physics this evening.”

“You get A’s in physics, Dean,” Cas says before returning to his book. Dean sighs.

“Correction. _You_ need tutoring in physics. You’re dangerously unaware of how fast jokes fly over your head.”

 

* * *

 

Dean’s next classes are Math (which he shares with Ash, and because they’re both bored to tears during the class, they spend most of their time doodling in a notebook) and Psychology (which he shares with Jo, and he actually has to concentrate there, because Jo likes it and will stab Dean with a pen if he fools around). You’d think that the first week after summer would be easy, but no: Dean has to check Jo’s notes after he loses the red string that apparently is buried somewhere in the teacher’s long speech. He’s more than happy when the class ends and he gets to wipe his mind from whatever he was supposed to learn.

“Sure you don’t wanna join me and Pam?” Jo asks him when they walk down the hallway. “I think Ash is coming over later. We can watch something else.”

“Nah,” Dean says. “Some other time. I had enough _Sex and The City_ for a lifetime when you forced me to watch the first season.”

“I didn’t force you,” Jo says, a smile tugging her lips.

“You threatened to veto _Star Trek_ nights.”

“That wasn’t a threat. It was more, um, positive reinforcement.”

“Right.” Dean rolls his eyes. “Well, anyway, have fun.”

“See you tomorrow.” Jo smiles, and presses a quick kiss on his cheek before heading towards her locker. Dean goes the other way – his locker is on the opposite side of the school – but before he can take even three steps, a shy comment comes from his right.

“Aren’t you kissing the wrong person?”

Dean whirls around and sees a guy staring at him. The boy is so tiny and nervous that he must be a freshman, and Dean doesn’t recall seeing him before.

“What?”

“Never mind,” the boy squeaks and runs off. Dean stares after the boy, confused, until he simply shakes his head and walks on.

Castiel’s locker is roughly in the same place as Dean’s, although on the other side of the hallway. It’s actually a good thing, because they don’t share that many classes, so at least they can still say ‘hi’ every day at the lockers. As predicted, Cas is putting his books in the locker. Dean brightens up and jogs the rest of the way to Cas’s locker.

“Heya, Cas.”

“Hi, Dean.”

“So, I need you to save me from _Sex and The City_.”

“I thought that you liked it.”

“Secrets that you take to the grave, Cas. Remember?”

Cas’s lips curl up at that, and Dean shakes his head. He’s known Cas for fourteen years, and sometimes he still mistakes Cas’s deader than rock, deadpan sense of humor for genuine confusion. Most people don’t even make it past the first stage of that; they probably view Cas as boring and odd.

Their loss, in Dean’s opinion.

“No, seriously though, can I come over?”

“Dean, you’re always welcome to come over. You don’t need to ask.”

“I figured it was only polite after what happened with Gabriel and the cupcakes.”

“That was his own fault for not locking the door.”

“But, hey,” Dean says, as Cas shuts his locker, “I’m not messing up your super-effective schedule or anything, am I?”

“It’s only the first week,” Cas reminds him, with a small smile. “I think I can be forgiven for slacking off a bit. And besides, I’ve already added a time slot for you.”

It’s of course a joke – as far as Dean knows, Cas doesn’t have a color-coded calendar with time slots for studying and sleeping and Dean, but he wouldn’t be very surprised if the mythical calendar actually made an appearance some time. Concerned, but not surprised.

“Perfect.” Dean throws an arm over Cas’s shoulders, effectively pulling Cas flush against him. They start the slow walk to Dean’s car.

Dean thinks he hears someone whistle as they walk, but he doesn’t really notice that. It wasn’t aimed at them, right?

 

* * *

 

Castiel Collins’s home situation is what you might call “messy.” It’s not complicated to the degree people usually imagine it to be – no abusive fathers are involved, or alcoholism, or anything of the sort. It’s complicated in the sense that Castiel’s father hasn’t been in the picture for as long as anyone can remember, and that his siblings aren’t really his siblings, so instead of one, there is a slew of last names on their mail box. An absent father hasn’t really been a problem, though: Castiel’s mother is the gentlest creature on earth, and makes up for more than one missing father.

Gabriel, Cas’s “older brother,” is by blood his cousin, but after Gabe’s parents (Mrs. Collins’s brother and his wife) were killed in a car accident, Gabriel was immediately adopted into the family. He’s been there since he was five and Cas was one, so really, Gabriel is an older brother to Cas. Likewise, Balthazar, Cas’s one year younger cousin, had something shady happen to his father, and to get away from it, he was sent to Cas’s house when he was nine. Dean thanks his lucky starts every day that Balthazar attends a different school. The guy is okay in small amounts, but Dean can’t understand how Cas can put up with being near Balthazar every day. In addition, cousins and aunts and uncles have been flitting in and out of Cas’s life for years; it’s not exactly uncommon to find one additional member being added to the Collins household for a while, before they up and disappear again.

This is why Dean possibly should have expected it, but the revelation still nukes his brain with the weird. He enters Cas’s house like always, takes off his shoes and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water while Cas goes to put his things away, and then he freezes on the threshold.

“Hi, Dean,” Anna says from the kitchen counter, and smiles at him like she didn’t just reject him a few hours ago in the school hallway – by assuming him and Cas were dating, nonetheless. “Will you be staying for dinner?”

“Uh,” Dean says. That seems to be the theme when he’s communicating with Anna.

“I’m making Spaghetti Bolognese,” Anna helpfully adds, and continues to mince the onions.

“You, uh,” Dean says, “I didn’t know you, uh…”

“Hi, Anna,” Cas says when he enters the kitchen. Dean’s still trying to sort out his thoughts by the kitchen door, but Cas goes straight to the cupboards and takes out a glass. He turns to give Dean a confused look.

“Didn’t you want water?”

Dean finally kicks himself back into the real world. “Yeah, uh, wait. Anna, um…”

Cas and Anna share a concerned look. “She’s my cousin,” Cas says. “Water?”

“Oh,” Dean says. “Yeah, I’ll take that water now. And no thanks, won’t be staying for dinner. Promised mom I’d be home by dinnertime.”

“Alright,” Anna says, and continues to mince the onions. Cas hands him a glass of water, which Dean drowns instantly. He doesn’t dare say anything while Cas and Anna talk about their days. Now that Dean sees them next to each other, there is some family resemblance. They’re both ethereally calm, for one thing. Both have clear eyes that invite you to drown in them. And there’s something soothing in both of their voices.

It’s a bit unnerving. Dean stays quiet until Cas and he go up to Cas’s room.

“So,” Dean says, “how many cousins do you have just, you know, waiting to appear at a dramatically convenient moment?”

Cas blinks in confusion, and sits down on his bed. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before,” Cas argues.

“Uh, nope, I don’t recall,” Dean says.

“Oh.” Cas takes a pillow and puts it behind his back for comfort. This non-reaction to Dean’s confusion makes Dean think back to earlier that day, and Dean can’t decide if he should he laugh or cry right now. He settles for slumping down on the beanbag chair opposite of Cas’s bed and throwing his hands up in disbelief.

“Dude, seriously? I tried to hit on your cousin?”

Cas just raises his eyebrows, as if he doesn’t understand what Dean’s trying to say, so Dean backpedals, “Uh, I’m sorry I tried to hit on your cousin?”

“I don’t see how I should have any say in her dating life,” Cas says. He adjusts the pillow. “Or yours, for that matter,” he adds after a short silence. Dean grins at him, relieved that Cas is not angry, but decides to leave Anna alone from now on. She’s pretty, and almost abnormally nice, but it’d feel weird to date her when she lives in the same house as Cas and is very obviously a sister to him in all but name.

Not to mention, she kind of turned him down.

“Why does your cousin think we’re dating?” Dean then muses. He smirks at Cas, good-naturally. “What exactly have you told her about me?”

Cas’s face barely changes, but Dean notices him slanting his eyes just a tad. Dean’s grin grows.

“Hey, I’d brag if I was dating me.”

“Yes, Dean,” Cas rolls his eyes, “I’d shout it from the rooftops if I was dating you. Would draw it in the clouds. Tattoo it on my forehead.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Dean says. “I’m awesome.”

“I know,” Cas says. He smiles a bit, and Dean smiles back.

“You don’t really need to tramp-stamp yourself with ‘property of Dean Winchester,’ you know,” Dean adds then. Cas snorts with laughter.

“Dean, I can promise you that I’m _never_ going to tattoo that on myself.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Dean says, and Cas throws a pillow at him.

 

* * *

 

The blessed weekend goes by too fast – it turns out that competing against Sam in _Mario Kart_ can and will take fourteen hours of your day when your parents are out of the house – and Dean is still trying to wake up and not see blue shells everywhere when he walks into the school building on Monday morning. He’s trying to remember where exactly he’s supposed to be heading when he accidentally runs into Chuck Shurley.

Chuck is carrying a notebook in his one hand and his ever-present thermos of black coffee in the other, and Dean just barely avoids getting coffee all over his jacket. They’re both more surprised about the collision than anything else, and Dean bends to pick up the notebook and hands it to Chuck while Chuck checks that there isn’t coffee anywhere else but in the thermos.

“Oh, thank you,” Chuck says, relieved when Dean hands him the tattered notebook. In fact, he sounds so relieved that you’d think Dean just saved him from a herd of hungry sharks.

“You okay there, Chuck?”

Chuck winces just like he is having the worst hangover of the century, but other than his blood-rimmed eyes, he shows no signs of hangover. Dean raises his brows. Chuck and Dean aren’t exactly friends, but they talk from time to time, and besides, Dean figures that it’s only common courtesy to ask this from the guy who practically shares all of his classes with Dean.

Chuck nods, a little shakily. “Yeah, yeah, I’m doing great. Just ah, little tired.”

“You sure seem like it. Long night?”

“Didn’t sleep a wink.”

Dean grins, but Chuck sighs, already shaking his head at Dean’s assumptions, whatever they might be.

“I wrote all night. Couldn’t go to sleep.”

Dean’s smile falters a bit – everyone and their mother knows that Chuck spends all of his free-time writing some super-secret project that he won’t talk about, but pulling an all-nighter on Sunday night is a little extreme, even for Chuck.

“You sure you should be at school?” Dean asks, noticing how Chuck’s fingers keep nervously tapping against the notebook in his hand and how his eyes keep scanning over the same spots on the floor again and again. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” Chuck repeats with a nervous laugh. “I just need coffee.” He raises his thermos as if to show Dean that he’s got everything he needs and isn’t about to collapse on the spot.

“If you say so,” Dean says, although he makes a mental note to himself to check later that day if Chuck is still alive.

“Yup,” Chuck says, his fingers twitching nervously. “Gotta go now. Uh. English.”

Dean refrains from commenting that with his current brilliant articulation and grammar, Chuck would probably be thrown out from the class before his second cup of coffee. “Right. Um, see you later.”

“See you,” Chuck says absently. Dean stares as he takes a huge gulp of coffee straight from the thermos and drags himself towards the classroom.

“Did Chuck seem odd to you?” Dean asks Cas when he reaches the lockers. Cas is glaring at his locker like it has personally offended him, but that’s the norm with Cas. He doesn’t really wake up before ten.

“Hm?” Cas mumbles. “Oh. No, not more than usual.”

“Right,” Dean says. “Oh, well, it’s probably nothing. What have you got today?”

The day passes as usual: boringly. Dean almost falls asleep during Math, simply because he already knows the subject and doesn’t need it explained to him the third time. He only stays awake because he amuses himself by watching how the dust dances just in front of Lisa Braeden, and how the tiny specs whirl around when she bends over her notebook. He watches how the sun gleams in her hair, how the light makes her tanned skin look even prettier than usual.

Lisa comes over to him after the class is over, while Dean is packing his things. Dean is surprised but happy about that.

“Hi, Lisa.”

“Hello,” Lisa smiles uncertainly. “Dean, I saw you looking at me earlier, and um…”

Dean doesn’t know what to expect, because he and Lisa used to go out – well, more like, they spent one great weekend at Lisa’s house when her parents were away, and that was that – and while he hasn’t spared a single thought for Lisa after that, he had, on some level, mused that maybe they should’ve tried more, that maybe they should’ve really dated instead of jumping into bed together and breaking up immediately afterwards. There might’ve been something there.

Dean is wholly unprepared to what comes out next of her mouth. “I won’t tell, but maybe you shouldn’t stare so much. Someone might become jealous.”

“Whuh?”

“Just thought you should know,” Lisa says, sighing with relief. “Bye.”

“Wait, Lis, hold on.” Dean gets a hold of her bag strap and she turns around. “Who’re you talking about?”

“Castiel, of course,” Lisa says like Dean’s particularly slow today.

Maybe he is, because Dean cannot connect the dots at all. But before he can protest (again) that he and Cas aren’t a couple, Lisa gives him a funny look and leaves the classroom.

What. The. Hell. That rumor is still making rounds?

Okay, now it’s official. Dean needs to get to the bottom of this.

… _wrong choice of words_ , Dean cringes.

 

* * *

 

It takes Dean exactly an hour and two minutes to come to the conclusion that yes, apparently the rumor is still going strong, and _everybody_ seems to believe it. Even the guys Dean’s known since middle school, like Victor and Andy, only give him a shrug when he asks about it. Absolutely no one apparently stopped to ask him and Cas about it, and no one stopped to think that there might be something suspicious about it.

Dean starts to despair as he continues to ask around. Even those who don’t like him (and the feeling is mutual), like Ruby and Lilith, cheerfully confirm that yes, he’s dating Cas, and why are you asking, you idiot? But it’s not until Charlie Bradbury, the leader of the Gay-Straight Alliance of the school, congratulates him for coming out that Dean loses his temper.

“Good job, Winchester,” she winks. “He’s dreamy!”

“CAS AND I AREN’T GOING OUT!” Dean yells at the top of his lungs, before he can stop to consider that it doesn’t exactly make him look any better. Especially when it happens during the first minutes of English.

“That’s lovely, Winchester,” Mrs. Moseley says, “but unless you want detention, we can do very well without hearing details about your love life.”

Charlie stays firmly on her side of the desk for the rest of the lesson, and after class, she runs away before Dean can apologize. Sighing deeply, Dean goes to lunch. Seeing familiar (sane) faces doesn’t really make him feel any better, though, and Jo notices this right away.

“Dean, you’re sulking,” she says, as tactfully as always. “What did you do?”

Dean refuses to answer. Jo stares at him until he gives up.

“I yelled at Charlie,” Dean says. He pushes his tray away, disgusted with himself. “Charlie! She’s like, the most unthreatening person on the planet.”

“Okay,” Jo says. Pam and her share a concerned look. Ash and Cas don’t notice, because they’re concentrated on solving Fermat’s theorem. “So apologize to Charlie. And why were you yelling at her, anyway?”

“Because of that stupid rumor,” Dean sulks.

“The rumor? What, about you and Cas?” Pam asks. Dean nods, miserable.

“The hell is up with everyone lately?” Dean asks. “Like… they’ve known us all their lives. And suddenly, the whole school is under some mass delusion that we’re dating?”

Jo and Pam look at each other, then at Cas. Dean has never understood how someone can retain their focus with all the loud talk around them, but Cas and Ash have both somehow mastered that. It’s annoying, in fact, from time to time, because you literally need to shake them to get them to pay attention.

Dean coughs. “This doesn’t bother you, Cas?”

“What now?” Cas finally lifts his head from his Math notes. This wakes up Ash, as well, although he looks even more distraught than Cas to be disturbed from doing science.

“The small fact that the entire school seems to be under the delusion that we’re fucking.”

Cas blinks a little at Dean’s choice of words, and then shrugs. “No. I don’t care what they think.”

“Awesome,” Dean says.

“You and I and our friends know the truth, Dean, and that’s enough.”

“Awesome,” Dean repeats, because he cannot think of anything else to say.

Besides, it _is_ rather awesome that Cas is awesome like that.

He needs another adjective to describe his best friend, but first Cas would need to stop being so awesome.

“Okay,” Dean says, more to himself than to the others. “Right. Don’t let it bother me.”

“The whole thing’s gonna die down in a week,” Jo consoles him.

The whole thing does, weirdly enough, die down in a week. Dean apologizes to Charlie, explains that it’s just a rumor, and Charlie gracefully accepts that, and that seems to get the ball rolling. Come Monday, and everyone seems to have blissfully forgotten about the odd Dean/Cas drama. It stops abruptly, as if someone meant for that particular plot thread to go somewhere but forgot to pick it up, and so it fades out like a shortly lived punch-line in a badly-written sitcom.

Dean is glad about that. He doesn’t like his love life being spread around like a damn hot potato in any case, but he thinks it’s particularly creepy for people to latch onto he and Cas’s hypothetical relationship. Honestly, if they _hypothetically_ were going out, then _hypothetically_ they’d keep it private.

“You wouldn’t like your love life being broadcasted all over the world, would you?” Dean asks Cas on Friday, when they’re lounging in Cas’s room, doing their homework. (Well, Cas is working. Dean thinks it’s a complete waste of time to do homework on a Friday, when you can take it easy and do it on Sunday evening instead.)

Cas, who’s sitting on the floor, looks up from his notebook and shoots a frown at Dean, who’s on the bed.

“No, Dean,” Cas says.

“Good,” Dean says, and turns on his side to face away from Cas. He doesn’t exactly know why it’s important, but it is.


	2. Act I, Scene 2

On Tuesday, Guy Alastair shoves Cas against his locker as Cas is getting his books from there. Dean, whose locker is on the other side of the hallway, sees this, and instantly drops his books in shock. So do other people around Cas, because why on earth is Alastair attacking Cas?

This is absolutely nonsensical for one reason: Cas has a purple belt in judo. And even if Alastair is failing almost every class, you’d think that he’d at least do his homework on the subject “who I can and who I shouldn’t push against lockers” before he tries to attack Cas.

Thus, one neat _koshi-waza_ later, Alastair is on the floor, on his stomach and dumbfounded. There’s a confused silence all around the hallway; no one’s rooting for a fight, because there wouldn’t be much of a fight, as witnessed. Cas steps away from Alastair, continues to take his books from the locker as if nothing happened, while Alastair gets and leaves, cursing under his breath.

Dean takes his own books from his locker, slams it shut and makes his way to Cas.

“Well, that was weird,” Dean notes.

“Certainly,” Cas says, just as confused. Alastair has never bothered him before this moment, nor has Cas given him any reason for it. In fact, Dean is pretty sure Cas and Alastair have never even spoken to each other before this odd little interlude. All in all, it’s a very unsuccessful attempt at bullying.

“Anyway,” Dean says, “lunch?”

Cas adjusts his backpack. “Of course. Let’s go.”

They manage to walk away from the hallway and get lost in their conversation about a movie they both watched during weekend, and all is well, until Dean suddenly feels a prickling of awareness at his neck. He turns his head and startles as he notices Chuck Shurley walking suddenly beside them and looking concerned.

“Oh, uh, hi Chuck,” Dean says.

“Uh, hi,” Chuck says. It sounds fake, and Dean notices the black circles under Chuck’s eyes.

“Late night writing again?” Dean asks.

“What?” Chuck pales. “Um, yes, yes. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“You really should consider just putting a timer on your computer,” Dean says.

Chuck ignores that. He leans toward Castiel, bypassing Dean, who stops walking out of confusion. In a chain reaction, they all stop walking.

“Um, Castiel, Alastair tried to… He didn’t… hit you, did he?” Chuck looks a little panicked.

“He tried,” Cas says, frowning a little.

“Cas Mr. Miyagi’d him to the floor,” Dean helpfully adds.

“Mr. Miyagi did karate, Dean.”

“Oh,” Chuck says. His fingers are tapping his bag so fast that Dean has trouble following the movement. “That’s… that’s good. No, that’s better. I mean. Um. Good.”

“Chuck, you didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?” Dean asks, because given Chuck’s weird interest, it’s a legitimate question.

“What? No, of, of course not,” Chuck says. He gives a little chuckle. “Anyway, I gotta go now, guys. Um. See you around.”

Dean and Cas watch Chuck retreat, a question mark written on their faces.

“Well, that was weird,” Dean finally says.

“Certainly.”

It gets weirder, because apparently Alastair did not give up after his humiliating attack. He tries to pull a pocket knife on Cas in the line for lunch, but Cas simply knocks the knife away before Alastair can even fold it and sends Alastair flying over a table. The only one who complains about this is Victor Henriksen, because Alastair happens to land on his lunch.

“Take your stupid fights outside!” Victor yells, his lap full of pea soup.

“Sorry,” Cas yells back. “I’ll buy you a new lunch!”

“You better!”

Nobody pays attention when Alastair slinks away, and luckily, nobody bothers to alert the teachers. The fight dissolves before it even starts, and the usual chatter sets back in.

“Seriously, what the fuck is his problem, anyway?” Dean asks when they sit down at their table.

Cas only shrugs. He seems less concerned about Alastair’s pitiful attempts at bullying than Dean.

Jo is happily examining Alastair’s pocket knife and gives Cas a wide grin when he sits down.

“You should get into fights more often,” she says. “This is completely useless, by the way. It won’t even open properly.”

“I did wonder why he reacted so slowly,” Cas confesses.

“He’s still an asshole, though,” Dean says. “Though a very confusing one. Like, why attack Cas?”

“Maybe Alastair’s taking classes in acting like a shitty person,” Pam says. “Or he’s got a very serious hate-crush on you.”

“Please don’t say such disturbing things,” Cas grimaces.

“Well, he did have a hate-crush on Dean in seventh grade,” Ash says.

“So, Pam, talked to Jesse today?” Dean hurriedly asks, because he does _not_ need to be reminded of that twisted little piece of history.

Dean’s next class is History, which he hates for two reasons: one, he doesn’t share it with any of his friends, and two, it’s history. He usually hides in the last row and hopes that he goes unnoticed, and so far, it has worked out. But today, there’s a slight wrench in his plan.

Anna Milton is sitting next to his usual place. Dean desperately looks for a place elsewhere, before admitting to himself that he’s being ridiculous by avoiding Anna and that he should just man up and sit in his usual place as if nothing’s wrong. There’s no reason to be scared of Anna.

He hesitantly sits down. Anna greets him, and he greets back.

It’s awkward.

“So,” Dean says, after they’ve sat in silence for ten long seconds, “you, uh, how you liking the school so far?”

Anna’s eyes twinkle mischievously. “Look, Dean, I’m sorry that we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Well, uh, that was certainly a first for me.”

“I’m sorry for making assumptions,” Anna says. “So, friends?”

Dean shrugs. “Sure,” he says, with a relieved grin. “But first you must pass an important test.”

“Really?”

“Are you good at history? Because I suck and I don’t have the willpower to concentrate.”

“I would’ve thought Cas’s superhuman abilities of concentration would have rubbed off on you,” Anna says.

“Ha-fucking-ha,” Dean says, and just like that, he knows that they’re going to get along just as he first thought they would: marvelously.

History is still boring, but at least he has Anna to entertain him now. Anna confesses that she doesn’t really care about history either way, but her notes are clean and precise, and because she doesn’t fool around (much) during class, Dean has to concentrate as well. It proves to be a practical arrangement.

“I don’t know how you did it, but I think for once I might actually remember something about the Paris treaty,” Dean tells Anna after class when they’re walking down the hallway.

“I’m just that good,” Anna grins. “I actually did have a favor to ask,” Anna says then. “I need a model for my croquis drawings. It’s a project for art class. And, surprisingly, no one’s volunteered yet.”

“What, you wanna draw me like one of your French girls?” Dean asks. “Please tell me we’re not gonna re-enact the rest of _Titanic_ while we’re at it.”

Anna bites her lips to stop the laughter.

“Let me guess, that was in the top ten most hilarious things you’ve ever heard?”

“It’s up there,” Anna says, “with ‘Gabriel, the wasps’ nest is not a football.’”

“Oh, god. Did he really—?”

“Take a guess.” Anna starts to laugh so hard that she needs to take a few breaths before she calms down, and Dean’s somewhat jealous, because that memory must be hilarious. “He actually needed to be taken to a hospital, he had so many stings. But at least he carefully burned each and every nest for the next five summers at our summer cottage. We never had a problem with wasps again.”

Dean walks Anna to her bike, because she’s done for the day. So is Dean, actually, but he’s waiting for Cas, because he promised Dean they’d go to a new burger joint Cas had noticed a few days before.

“So, about that art project,” Anna starts, hesitation clear in her voice. Dean can’t say no to her.

“I can do that,” he says. “I make a better model than Cas, anyway.”

Anna snorts. “He actually said, ‘Dean would make a better model than me’ when I asked him this morning.”

“He’s got good taste,” Dean says. “Wait, do I have to be naked?”

Anna looks him up and down, as if checking him out. “If you like to. I’d say… yes.”

“Very funny,” Dean says. “Seriously, what’s the project?”

“It’s just a set of croquis drawings,” Anna explains. “Means you have to improvise a new pose every minute, or two minutes, or five minutes. It’s speed-drawing.”

“Wow, that actually sounds… lame,” Dean says, and Anna laughs at his disappointment. “And here I was thinking that you’d be creating a kickass oil-painting of angels or something.”

“I think you’d make a good angel,” she says. She examines Dean’s features, before flashing a smile. “Yes. A very good Michael.”

“Is that your final art project?”

“We’ll see,” Anna says. She gets on her bike, hoisting her bag on her shoulder. “It’s not urgent yet, but I can text you later so we can agree on a time?”

“Sure,” Dean says. He takes out his phone and lets Anna insert her number there, and after he saves it he calls Anna’s phone. He’s actually feeling very good about this, making an actual new friend, so he can’t help asking, “You coming to Meg’s back-to-school party next Saturday?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been invited.”

“Eh, Meg’s cool. Scary, but cool. She won’t mind if you’ll come with us.” Anna doesn’t look convinced, so Dean continues, “I think you should come. Jo and Pam and Ash are coming, too. You can get to know them. I think you’d like them.”

“I’ll talk to Cas,” Anna says, but her smile says that she’s already decided to come.

 

* * *

 

“I hear you’re getting along with Anna,” Cas says when they’re sitting at the burger joint. It’s actually a pretty nice place – not that Dean cares much about the interiors, because the food is the main selling point for him. But it’s nice, he supposes, in an old-fashioned way: big booths with red leather and sturdy, wooden tables. They’re sitting next to a window that opens to the street, so the view isn’t much, but it’s nice to just watch the people pass by.

Dean swallows a big bite of his burger before answering. “Yeah. She’s nice.”

Cas smiles. “Yeah. I’m glad she’s here.”

Dean hesitates for a fragment, but not for long, because he knows that if Cas doesn’t want to tell, he won’t, and he won’t be hurt by Dean’s question. “Why’d she move here, anyway? During last school year and all.”

Cas’s eyes pass over the ketchup, so Dean passes it to him. Cas takes it and nods his thanks.

“Uncle Zach isn’t the nicest of people,” Cas says as he adds ketchup to his burger that is already swimming in ketchup. Dean refrains from mimicking vomiting, because the last time he did that, Cas spurted ketchup on his shirt. “He’s… to quote my ten-year-old self, an assbutt.”

“So he must be a real asshole, then.”

“Pretty much,” Cas says, picking up his burger again. “He’s Anna’s step-father. Anna’s been complaining about him for ten years straight. I don’t think she’s ever accepted him, and even less after her mother passed last year.”

Dean winces. Cas’s family is huge, but for some reason, all the good people seem to drop like flies. Gabriel’s parents are gone, as are Balthazar’s, and now Anna’s. At least Mrs. Collins is a great person, so Dean understands why Anna would choose to move to her care.

“I invited her to Meg’s party,” Dean says when he remembers that suddenly.

“That was nice of you,” Cas says. “She hasn’t said so, but I think she’s lonely.”

“Well, she won’t be for much longer,” Dean says, and he means it. Anna’s great. She won’t be lonely for long even if she doesn’t know anyone right now; she just needs a chance to meet people.

“Thank god we’re not in some sort of romantic comedy,” Dean snorts. “You know that this is exactly the sort of love triangle that writers would go crazy for.”

“I don’t understand why. She’s my cousin.”

“And a friend to me.”

“So, I really don’t see much room for drama here.”

“Charlie’s never shown you any fan discussions online, has she?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

 

* * *

 

Cas drops Dean off in front of his house after seven, and reminds Dean that he won’t have a car on Saturday, because Balthazar’s borrowing it then. Dean secretly thinks that Cas is too nice, letting Balthazar borrow his car at the most inconvenient times, but he promises to ask his dad for a car so they can drive to Meg’s party.

“I’m home,” he yells when he steps inside. There’s a wonderful smell of lasagna lingering in the air, and even if Dean’s just eaten, his mouth waters.

“Oh, hi, honey,” his mom greets him when walks into the kitchen. She’s washing dishes – something that Dean absolutely loathes and refuses to do, especially when they have a dishwasher, but mom says she finds it soothing.

“Cas has a new family member,” Dean says as he takes a can of Coke out of the fridge.

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Collins told me,” Mary answers, unfazed. Typical. Cas gets a new family member and nobody bats an eye. “I ran into her in the grocery store.”

“She’s faster than a news broadcast,” Dean mutters. He sits at the kitchen table and pulls out his homework.

“Did you have a nice day, sweetie?” Mary asks.

“Hm? Yeah, it was good. We went to that new burger place.”

“Castiel and his burgers,” Mary mutters, shaking her head. Dean grins – it’s a running joke that Cas would probably eat nothing but burgers if everyone around him didn’t from time to time stuff something healthier into him.

There’s thudding and the sound of someone dropping a book from the stairs, immediately followed by dad’s exclamation of “no running on the stairs!” as Sam rushes downstairs. Mary sighs – despite getting three stitches on his forehead last summer, Sam will probably never learn that the most graceful way to descend the stairs isn’t by jumping two at a time.

“ _Mario Kart?_ ” Sam instantly asks when he pops into the kitchen. He’s probably still nursing a wounded ego from the time Dean beat him five times in a row.

“Gotta do my homework first.” Dean gestures at the notebooks spread out before him, and Sam dramatically sighs at this.

“What about your homework, young man?” Mary asks Sam, who simply shrugs.

“Already did it at school.”

“Nerd,” Dean mutters. “Go ask dad.”

Sam snorts. “Dad can’t even keep on the track, Dean.”

“How am I supposed to steer with no steering wheel?” John Winchester smiles as he steps into the kitchen. His hands are greasy – he’s most likely been working on one of his dream projects stored in the garage – so he carefully keeps his hands to himself as he bends down to give Mary a light kiss. John Winchester restores old cars for a living, and has his own shop with his business partner Bobby Singer, but the success also means that he’s working more often than not, even when he’s supposed to have a night off. And even if he does have a night off and he’s not at work, he usually has his hands inside one of the side-projects he’s collected for himself, just for fun. Dean keeps hoping that maybe dad will give him one of the cars for his 18th birthday, but so far, John has simply deflected all of Dean’s inquiries.

“You have a controller, dad, you don’t need a wheel to play _Mario Kart_ ,” Sam explains, exasperated. John has that certain smile on his face that Sam’s never understood, but Dean knows it means, “I know exactly what you mean and I’m just messing with you.” John turns to wash his hands in the sink, now that Mary’s finished with the dishes.

“Oh, hey dad, speaking of cars,” Dean says, “can I borrow the Impala for weekend?”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Meg’s back-to-school party. Cas doesn’t have his car then.”

“Hm.” John dries his hands and turns to look at Dean. “You can take the Ford, if you’re the designated driver.”

“If I promise I’ll be the designated driver, can I please take the Impala?”

“No.”

“But dad!” Dean whines, because the Impala? Would absolutely be the coolest car at that party.

“You can take the Ford,” dad says, and it’s final.

 

* * *

 

“We’re taking the Ford?” Cas asks first thing when he opens the door and slides into the front seat. Anna goes to the back seat, smiling at Dean through the mirror when she sits down. She’s wearing a red skirt and a black shirt, which contrast really nicely with her red hair, and Dean thinks she looks beautiful.

“Hi, Dean,” she says, and Dean smiles back.

“Hi.” He senses Castiel still staring at the right side of his face, but he refuses to blush under that scrutiny. Sometimes Cas has no idea how intimidating he can be.

“Dad wouldn’t let me borrow the Impala,” Dean mumbles. “Shut up, this is a perfectly good car.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Cas says, but there’s a little smirk forming on his lips. Dean absently smacks Cas in the shoulder before the smirk reaches its full bloom, and Cas retaliates by kicking Dean in the shin.

“Dude! I need that leg to drive!”

“Then stop hitting me and drive.”

“Yes, mom,” Dean says, and drives.

“Children,” Anna mutters from the back seat.

Meg Masters is one of those people who Dean admires for their snark and attitude, but is also scared to death if he’s forced to be around her. They’ve had a rocky sort-of-friendship from the start: it probably didn’t help that the first time Dean met Meg in seventh grade, he unknowingly made fun of her art project. Meg proceeded to destroy her project and blame it on Dean. Dean retaliated by stealing all of her books and gluing glitter all over them. They only made a truce when it became apparent that for whatever weird reason, Castiel and Meg actually liked to spend time with each other. During the years, Dean and Meg have abandoned the pranks and proceeded to act civil, because they both realized that the other wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, Castiel (probably) wouldn’t help either of them to bury a body.

They easily spot Meg’s house a block away by all the cars parked in the front lawn. Dean parks the Ford very carefully, not wanting a scratch on it, and when they climb out of the car, the music playing in the house suddenly becomes louder. Meg isn’t in the habit of inviting too many people – she’s adamant about keeping the situation under control and not trashing the house – but there are a lot of cars that Dean doesn’t recognize. Meg opens the door herself, raising her brows when she sees their trio.

“Winchester,” she coolly says.

“Masters,” Dean answers.

Castiel sighs. “Good to see you, Meg.”

“Hi, Clarance.” Meg gives him a hug, and when she steps back, she notices Anna. “Your cousin?”

“Hi,” Anna says, nervousness apparent in her voice. Meg smiles – when she does that, she almost looks like a human, Dean notices.

“Two things,” she says to Anna. “One: beer to the left. Two: have fun!”

“Thank you.”

“Great!” Meg says. “And if you vomit on the carpet, I will skin you alive.”

“She’s not serious,” Cas tries to add, but Meg flashes a grin and disappears into the house.

“Not serious, my ass,” Dean mutters under his breath. They enter the house and greet a few people in the doorway, but most of the people seem to be in the living room, so that’s where they go. Dean manages two steps into the living room, before something petite and blonde barrels into him with such force that Dean can’t breathe for a moment.

“Dean!”

“Hi, Jo,” Dean says when he’s got his breath back. Jo staggers backwards a few steps, smiling widely. “I see you’re having fun.”

“Pam gave me shots,” she says, and there’s a slight slur to her voice. “Shouldn’t have drinken them all. Drunken.”

Dean grabs her by the shoulder and stops her from wandering off. “Pam’s not allowed to get you anything from now on.”

“Pah,” Jo says, waving her hand. “I’m fine. Hey, Cas!” She attacks Castiel next, and though Cas is more prepared for this than Dean, he still lets out an “oomf!” when Jo crushes him with her hug.

“It’s like hugging a rock,” Jo grumbles when she lets Cas go.

“If I wasn’t afraid for my life, hugging you might be more agreeable.” Cas’s comment goes unnoticed by Jo, because she turns and sees Anna. They smile at each other politely.

“Hi,” Jo says. “You’re pretty. And I’m drunk.”

“I can see that,” Anna says.

“I’ve seen you before,” Jo continues. “Oh! Right, you’re Cas’s cousin. Newest cousin.”

“I didn’t know there was a competition for that position,” Anna says.

“Word of warning,” Jo stage-whispers to Anna, “don’t try to drink Cas under the table.”

Anna bites her lips to stop the laughter, and Dean immediately knows that those two are going to become best friends. “Been there, done that.”

“Anna,” Cas says warningly.

Jo’s mouth falls open. “You drank Cas under the table?” She grabs Anna’s hands, and Anna, still biting her lips in amusement, lets her. “I will pay you to hear this story.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Cas tries to say, but Jo and Anna pay him no mind. Jo, still clutching to Anna’s hands, leads her away, and Anna only gives them an amused glance over her shoulder as she follows Jo to the couch.

“Got something to say, Cas?” Dean teasingly asks when the girls have disappeared.

“We were thirteen. We found a bottle of vodka. I blame Gabriel,” Cas reluctantly says.

“I’m learning new things about you every day, man,” Dean laughs. “Should’ve befriended your cousin earlier.”

“I’m going to go find some intelligent company,” Cas sighs. Dean just laughs and pats him on the shoulder, before letting Cas walk over to Meg. Dean finds Pam and Ash, sitting in the corner – curiously, with Pam on Ash’s lap, and alcohol doesn’t seem to be involved. They’re sitting in a loose formation of a circle with Victor Henriksen, Bela Talbot, Ruby Cassidy and Crowley (whose real name nobody seems to know). Dean doesn’t think he’s ever seen a more random group of people spending time together. It’s one of the upsides – or downsides, depending on your view – to being in Meg’s good books (well, sort of): you get to meet all sorts of people, both from their school and outside of it.

Dean’s the designated driver, so he doesn’t take the shot Pam offers him, but gets himself a water just to have something in his hands. He falls into a discussion with Victor. Ruby and Bela soon join them, and suddenly, they’re arguing about the safety of Hogwarts and moving staircases. The only one who seems bored by this is Crowley, who only interjects to sigh. Pam and Ash stay mostly out of it, although at one point Ash takes offense when Bela says that there’s no logic in the wizarding world and you don’t have to explain magic, and Ash launches into an explanation about how magic and physics can totally exist side by side. It flies a bit (completely) over Dean’s head, and his focus starts to swim, as does everyone else’s.

“Would you look at that,” Crowley suddenly comments, looking at something behind Dean’s back. Dean turns around, searches for a while, and then suddenly sees what Crowley means.

Castiel is pressed against the wall opposite of them, and grinding against his hips is none other than Meg Masters. She’s flush against him, her fingers cradling Cas’s skull, and Cas’s hands are trailing her sides. They’re kissing, and from the flush on Cas’s face, it’s very welcome.

“Huh,” Dean says. He tries to keep the grimace off of his face, because Cas is effectively kissing a demon, but if you like that… She’s a little (a lot) intimidating, but he’s known her long enough to know that she really likes Cas. Good on Cas, maybe? He just didn’t know Cas had a thing for Meg, because Cas has never mentioned that, and realizing that Cas didn’t tell something that big is a little off-putting. Dean quickly turns back to face the others.

“Finally,” Pam says. “That was a long time coming.”

“Huh?” Ash says. “I never noticed anything.”

“You never notice anything, sweetie. Unless it’s on you computer screen.”

Ash shrugs. “True.”

“No, but wait,” Ruby says, “you can’t create matter out of nothing. I’m sure they did spells like that.” And just like that, they’re back to arguing about Harry Potter. Crowley sighs like he’s suffering greatly, but Dean’s having the time of his life. In fact, the conversation goes on for so long that Dean doesn’t even consider moving from his spot, and after they’ve determined that magic might be able to exist without breaking the rules of physics, they drift onto other subjects. Crowley looks like he’s surrounded by idiots, until Ruby gets him to talk about dogs, and suddenly there’s warmth in his voice as he describes different training methods and how he’s had a dog called Pup since he was seven.

It’s a pretty fun night, by all accounts. Shortly before twelve, Dean looks at the clock and realizes that he needs to leave if he doesn’t want his mom to stay up and worry.

“Leaving so soon?” Pam asks him drowsily when he stands up.

“You gonna get home okay?” Dean asks in return, and Pam waves her hand.

“I’ll crash over at Ash’s.”

Dean doesn’t dare to ask. He gives Pam a kiss on the forehead, says his goodbyes to others and goes to find Cas and Anna, because he’s responsible for taking them home. Anna is easy to find, as she’s sitting on a nearby couch with Jo. They’re talking, and from the way they’ve turned completely towards each other, it appears that they’ve been absorbed in conversation for who knows how long.

“Hey, Anna,” Dean says, “I’m about to leave, if you want a ride back.”

“Oh,” Anna says. She turns away from Jo reluctantly. “Thank you, but I think I’ll stay.”

“I’ll get her home,” Jo promises, and Dean leaves it be, because Jo’s not slurring anymore, and because Jo lives nearby. If everything else fails, at least they can walk to Jo’s. Ellen may be strict with Jo, but she’d never turn anybody away from her door.

“Well, you ladies have a good night, then,” Dean says, and Jo and Anna wave at him as he walks away. He notices Cas on the other side of the living room, talking to Meg, and he hesitates. He doesn’t want to interrupt them, because they seem to be in their own little world, but he did promise Cas a ride home.

Cas solves his dilemma for him. Dean’s eyes meet Cas’s for a second, and then Cas is suddenly saying goodbye to Meg and walking towards Dean.

“You’re not gonna stay?” Dean asks, surprised, as they walk to the car.

“Why?” Cas frowns.

“I saw you with Meg earlier. You two seemed to hit it off.”

“Oh.” Cas at least blushes a little. “That was… uh. An experiment.”

“And the results?” Dean grins.

“Satisfactory,” Cas shrugs, “but not mind-blowing.”

“It’s not a science project, Cas.”

“Well—”

“Don’t argue that it really is, because of dopamine and endorphins and hormones involved.”

“I was going to say that it was more like an experiment in bacterial exchange, but your version is indefinitely more interesting.”

“Dork,” Dean says, fondly.

 

* * *

 

On Monday, Dean’s barely gotten his books from his locker when a tiny voice from behind scares him.

“Hi, Dean.”

“Jesus, Chuck!” Dean slams his locker shut and turns around. “Don’t sneak up on people like that! Not all of us are awake at eight!”

“Sorry,” Chuck sheepishly says. “Uh, did you have a good weekend?”

Dean blinks. It’s too early to be exchanging pleasantries with Chuck Shurley, of all people.

“Um, it was nice. Went to Meg’s party.”

“Right,” Chuck laughs. “Um. How’s she?”

Does Chuck have a crush on Meg Masters? What is happening?

“Had a great time with Cas, I’d say,” Dean answers. He picks up his bag from the floor, preparing to escape from Chuck any second now.

“Great,” Chuck says. “That, that is… great.”

“Um, the bell’s about to ring,” Dean says. Chuck nods, absently.

“Right. Yes. You, uh, have a good day. Just, uh… try to avoid getting locked into anything today? And keep Castiel out?”

“Chuck, what the hell?”

“I’ve gotta go,” Chuck says, and in a blink, the little guy is gone.

“What the hell is that guy’s problem, anyway,” Dean mutters.

Dean forgets all about Chuck’s nonsense, until it all comes rushing back to him when it’s obviously too late. At P.E., they’re playing volleyball, and the teacher sends Dean and Cas to retrieve a second net from the storage. It’s not there, so the teacher surmises that he must have accidentally left it in the small closet next to the dressing rooms, because that’s where all the useless junk is kept.

Cas almost breaks down the handle in order to open the door, which really should be a giant warning sign to them, but they ignore it. Dean takes a look at the closet, doesn’t see the net, and steps in. He locates it in the back, hidden behind broken baseball bats, and Cas steps in to help him lift the net.

The door slams closed behind them, and they hear a soft ‘click’ as the lock slides in place.

Of course it does.

There’s a short, confused silence.

“We appear to be stuck in a closet,” Cas finally says.

“We’re in a closet,” Dean says. “Of course. Fucking Chuck.”

“Chuck?”

“He warned me about this earlier today. I knew someone was out to fuck with you.” Dean can hear the question hanging in the air, though he can’t see Cas’s face, so Dean adds, “Or me. I don’t know.”

“Chuck knew we would be locked in a closet?”

“I dunno,” Dean says, frustrated. He turns around, accidentally knocking into Cas, and fumbles in the dark until he finds the door handle, but it doesn’t even budge when he tries it.

“Hope you don’t have to pee any time soon,” Dean jokes.

“Well, in fact—”

“I take it back. No jokes about peeing.”

“As you wish,” Cas says. Dean doesn’t need to see his face to detect the amusement.

“Do you think they’ll ever find our bodies?”

“Dean, we’ve been here for two minutes. Don’t start on your eulogy just yet.”

“It never hurts to be prepared.” Dean tries the door handle again, but nothing happens, obviously. He pushes the door next, but it doesn’t budge, and when he takes a step backwards in order to ram against the door, he steps on Cas’s feet.

“Sorry!” Dean says when he hears Cas’s hiss of pain. “Why aren’t these things larger?”

“It’s a closet full of junk, Dean, it’s not supposed to be spacious.” Cas attempts to step to the right, but he hits a wall. Right, then. They both have approximately a radius of one step they can take before bumping into each other. This is not going to be comfortable.

Dean tries to lean on the wall before he remembers that there’s a box of old baseball gloves there, and he really doesn’t want that stench on his clothes. He hears Cas shuffle around, trying to find a comfortable position, but in the end, they end up just standing like they were in the first place, near the net and with almost no space between them.

They wait in silence. This goes on for a minute, until Dean starts to hum “Why Can’t This Be Love,” and Cas, despite sighing at first, joins in by humming the background.

Well, what else would they do in a dark closet?

They actually don’t have to wait for that long; Dean’s starting to hum “I’m All Out Of Love,” because he’s clever like that, but right then they hear someone walk by the door.

“Well,” Charlie says when she opens the door, “I know I told you to come out of the closet, but I didn’t mean it literally.”

“Funny,” Cas says.

“I try.”

“Any more jokes that you’d like to get out of your system?” Dean asks. Charlie pretends to think hard about this.

“No,” she says, “I think I’m good. What happened to you?”

“The door slammed shut,” Dean shrugs. “Should’ve known. Chuck warned me about it this morning.”

“Chuck?” Charlie asks, hesitantly, and it’s that hesitation that suddenly gives Dean a flash of inspiration.

“Charlie,” Dean asks, “who told you that me and Cas were a couple in the first place?”

Charlie looks nervously on her side. “I mean, I don’t want to gossip, especially when—”

“Charlie!”

“Um, I heard it from Gilda,” she says, reluctantly. “And I think she heard it from Chuck.”

Dean’s mind goes blank for a second before kicking back online with full force. Chuck? Chuck Shurley would do something like this? The same Chuck, who usually stays so far out of any kind of social activity that he was rumored to be a ghost in freshman year?

The same Chuck who’s been acting odd for a while, Dean reminds himself.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Charlie confirms. “But don’t be too hard on him! I don’t think he meant any harm.”

“Too hard on him,” Dean mutters. “Nope, won’t be too hard on him.”

Bashing someone’s head against a locker isn’t considered being “too hard on him,” is it?


	3. Act II, Scene 1

Dean confronts Chuck the first chance he gets. Unfortunately, that happens in the middle of the hall with five minutes of break left, but Dean takes it. The second he spots Chuck’s unruly hair and tired eyes in the crowd, he maneuvers himself between people until he’s directly in front of Chuck, effectively stopping the guy from fleeing.

“Hi, Chuck.”

Chuck almost drops both his shoulder bag and coffee thermos in surprise. Dean takes some sort of perverse satisfaction in seeing fear creep into Chuck’s eyes.

“Uhh, hi, Dean.” Chuck’s eyes nervously flicker up and down. “Sorry, I gotta—gotta go, I’m almost late for—”

“Chuck,” Dean says ominously.

“Yes?”

“Chuck, spill. You’ve been acting weird lately, even for you.”

“It’s… it’s nothing, Dean, I just—”

“You predicted me being locked in a closet and Alastair bullying Cas! Now what the fuck is going on? Are you helping someone prank us? Because I gotta tell you, really weak, man, I’ve pulled better shit on my brother.”

“I’m not pranking you!” Chuck says, weakly. “And I’m not helping anyone. It’s just, my writing—”

Dean can’t believe that Chuck would do something like that. “What the fuck? Are we some sort of living guinea-pigs for you?”

“Well, guinea-pigs usually are alive when they are tested, but—”

“Stay on point!”

“My writing—”

“Screw your writing! What’s going on?”

“I’m trying to tell you!” Chuck screeches, and the loud sound shocks Dean into silence. It actually shocks half of the people in the hallway, too, but Chuck doesn’t even notice them. His shoulders slump and he seems weary when he reaches into his shoulder bag and pulls out the notebook he’s always carrying with him.

“My writing’s been changing lately. At first, I thought I was just getting hit by random inspiration, but…”

Dean very much wishes to bash Chuck’s head in, but the little guy seems so sad that Dean refrains and forces himself to listen.

“I didn’t even notice it at first, but then, I started to write about you.”

Dean winces. “Chuck, man, you’ve gotta admit, that’s a little creepy.”

“I’m not doing it intentionally!” Chuck snaps. “I’m telling you, I don’t want to write about you or your romance with Cas, but these scenes just keep appearing and they keep coming true, and do you know how psychologically damaging that is to me?”

“Wait, wait, hold up, what the fuck now.” Dean puts his hands up. “Ro-romance with… Cas?”

Chuck nods, solemnly. It’s really not an expression Dean wanted to see.

“No,” Dean says, almost in blind panic. Chuck sighs and hands Dean his old, ever-present notebook.

“You’re not going to believe me, so just… take a look.”

Dean gingerly takes the tattered notebook and flips the first page open. It doesn’t contain anything incriminating on the first three or four pages – just random sentences, some odd scenes of two brothers talking about their mom and a few doodles of bunnies – but after that, the text starts to change. There is so much that Chuck has striked out or erased or completely blacked out that it’s difficult to make out, but the sentences start to suddenly feature him and Cas. Sitting in classroom, talking, eating in the cafeteria, and it very quickly gives Dean goosebumps, because he remembers saying those things out loud or thinking about them.

“What the fuck?” Dean gasps. Chuck sighs, and Dean gets back to reading, skimming the notebook now with a speed he didn’t know he possessed. “‘Alastair tried to hit Castiel, but at the last second, Castiel side-stepped very neatly and turned around, grabbing the bully by—’ Holy fuck!”

There are more scenes about them talking, them lounging in Cas’s room, them at the burger joint. But there are also scenes that don’t seem to match, like them going to Meg’s party and Cas kissing Meg – and Dean getting jealous and kissing Cas out of spite, which, what the fuck, did _not_ happen, and he did _not_ get jealous, he was simply surprised – and them getting stuck in the closet, and making out while they wait for Charlie to rescue them, what the hell. However, even those scenes are true, word for word, until they radically differ from what happened in real life. At this point Dean just shoves the notebook back to Chuck, because it’s getting way too creepy to read. It’s like an alternate version of his own life, and it’s making his head spin.

“Right,” he says. “Uh. Can’t you just… stop doing that?”

“Do you think I _want_ to see flash forwards of your life?” Chuck asks, wearily. “All this homoeroticism is messing with my head! Do you know how much I had to cut from my novel when I realized that it was actually a scene from your life?”

“You’re writing a novel?” Of course Dean knows that Chuck is writing a novel, but this is the first time he’s heard Chuck directly talk about it – it’s always just “I was writing” or “I need to go to write.” For all Dean knows, Chuck could be churning out gay erotica.

_Bad example_ , he winces.

“About two brothers searching for their mother,” Chuck says. “And all this… gay drama keeps creeping in on my script!”

“Ew,” Dean shudders.

They stand in an uncomfortable silence for a minute, because really, what do you even say in a situation like this.

“Um, so,” Dean finally says. “You… you really can’t stop doing that?”

Chuck shakes his head. “I just get a migraine,” he scoffs, “and then I have to write the scenes anyway. And, thanks to you, I always get a dozen new visions when things don’t go according to plan.”

Which is a roundabout way of saying that every time Dean _doesn’t_ make out with Cas in a closet, the universe gets mad at Chuck and bombards him with alternate plot points.

His life is so fucking weird.

Then something dawns on him.

“So… wait.” Dean doesn’t want to, but he needs to ask. “Your muse or… whatthefuckever… is telling you to write a story where hilarity ensues until me and Cas end up together?”

“Yes,” Chuck says.

“Oh,” Dean says. Then the bell rings, and he just walks away, already thinking about Chemistry and absolutely nothing else.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t fully hit Dean until lunchtime.

“Oh my god,” Dean blanches. “My life is a gay romantic comedy.”

“Are you gonna eat that?” Jo asks, and steals Dean’s fries without waiting for an answer. Dean notices but doesn’t care, because he has bigger things on his plate right now.

“Ooh! What if it’s a musical?” Ash beams.

He stands up and stretches his arms wide open; the only people looking at him are at Dean’s table, plus the one irritated guy whose head Ash managed to knock while he stood up. Ash starts to sing, “ _Suddenly I see…!_ ”

People turn around. Ash falters. Nothing happens, and everyone goes back to eat. Ash sits down, sighing.

“It’s not a musical. What a shame.”

“My life is a gay romantic comedy,” Dean repeats, slinking down on his seat. “Oh fuck.”

“Dean, after you’re finished with your monologue,” Jo says, “could you please elaborate a bit and tell us what the hell you’re on about?”

Dean can’t get the words out at first, because really, how the hell is he going to break to his friends that apparently magic is real or something, and hey, by the way, Chuck can see my future and I’m banging Cas there. No way. No.

“Uh,” Dean says, “Chuck… um…”

“Did he ask you out?” Pam innocently asks, and that shocks Dean out of his frozen state.

“What? No! Dear fucking god, I don’t need any more homoeroticism in my life.” Dean takes a breath and blurts out, “Chuck sees the future and, and, it’s all about me and Cas and our love story or something!”

A silence falls into the table. Even Ash looks concerned, now.

“Dude, I thought you didn’t use anything,” Ash comments.

“I’m not on drugs!” Dean hisses. “Chuck can see the future!”

“Wait. He… he actually told you that?”

“I saw the fucking notebook!” Dean exclaims. “He’s the real deal! He—he—he’s writing scenes about me and Cas!”

“You and Cas,” Jo slowly repeats. “As in, you _and_ Cas?”

“Yes.” Dean buries his head in his hands. “Apparently me and Cas are destined to be together, or something, and now Chuck can’t stop churning out passages where we’re, we’re, talking, or, or, whatever…”

“The universe ships you and Cas,” Pam laughs. “Oh my god, this is so precious.”

“The universe what?”

“Ships you. Tries to pair you. Wants you to end up together,” Jo translates, and she has the audacity to grin at Dean.

“Don’t you have any compassion?”

“Dean, you have to admit that it sounds a bit… odd. Really, the universe cares so much about your epic gay romance?”

“This is not funny,” Dean says.

“It’s a little bit funny.”

“What’s funny?” Dean jerks violently in his seat when Cas finally makes an appearance. Cas puts his tray down carefully and takes his seat, and Dean is momentarily confused by that sight and can’t stop Jo from talking.

“Chuck is getting visions about Dean’s epic gay romance.”

“Stop calling it that!”

“Oh,” Cas only says, taking his seat. “Any evidence for this, or is he merely spying on Dean?”

“It’s legit or then he has read my diary,” Dean mutters. “Not that I have a diary.”

“Sure you don’t,” Jo smirks.

“Hm,” Cas only says.

“Cas,” Dean asks, exasperated, “did you hear what Jo said just now?”

“I… assumed it was a joke of sorts?”

“No.” Dean would rather not explain the mess that is his life again, but he summarizes the situation in three compact sentences. Then Jo and Pam and Ash talk over him and theorize about what this means until they’re blue in the face, and Dean despairs again.

Cas remains remarkably calm during the whole discussion. Apart from asking confirmation on few points and expanding a few details, he doesn’t really say much. Dean can’t understand that.

“How are you so laid-back about this?” Dean asks. “Doesn’t this freak you out at all? Doesn’t this make you question the laws of the universe?”

“Not really,” Cas says. “I believe in the multiverse theory. If Chuck is getting some kind of visions, they might be flashes from possible outcomes of the situation, not something that is bound to happen.”

“That… actually makes me feel better,” Dean says. “So you don’t think it’s one-hundred per cent legit?”

“I just said, there might be some truth in the outcomes, but perhaps not in our universe.” Cas shrugs. “Has everything Chuck wrote in his notebook come true, Dean?”

“Uh.” Dean racks his brain. “Not really. I don’t think we talked about chicken lasagna last week, because they didn’t serve that.”

“We did,” Cas says, with a little crooked smile. “You said you didn’t believe it existed.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dean thinks back to the things he read, and then he reluctantly confesses, “Well… the closet thing didn’t happen like it was supposed to. And Meg’s party.”

“You got stuck in a closet?” Pam snorts, and Jo joins in the laughter.

“Shut up. The text said we were supposed to make out there. We didn’t.” Dean grimaces, then. “What’re we gonna do? This is… fuck. I don’t want a cosmic hand re-arranging my life.”

“Then don’t act like the text wants you to act,” Cas says. He touches Dean’s shoulder, and though Dean feels guilty about that, he flinches away. Cas sets his hand back on the table and doesn’t react to Dean rejecting his comfort. “It’s not a definite future, Dean. We’ve already proven that. Just be yourself.”

“What, you think that’s gonna make Chuck stop?”

“Let him write,” Cas shrugs. “If any time-traveling movie is to be believed, it’s not good to know things about your future. You’ll just end up obsessing over them.”

Jo raises her brows at Dean, who is already obsessing over them. Dean misses her look.

“So, what, we just continue like nothing happened?” Dean asks.

“Yes,” Cas says.

“Oh.” Dean thinks for a second. “Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

 

* * *

 

Dean can’t do this.

It’s barely been two days, and the universe has already decided that it’s had enough of Dean, because there is no way in hell that Dean’s supposed to make it out of this alive.

Who the hell ever decided that people should shower and change clothes after P.E., anyway?

And, secondly, what in the name of hell ever possessed him to take an extra P.E. course in his last year, when he could have taken art or something equally fulfilling with no stripping in front of his best friend that the stars have aligned for him to bang?

Dean’s sweating, although he’s not sure if it’s because of the baseball match they had, or because he’s the last one in the locker room, and he has to strip and go to the showers before the bell rings and the next class starts, and can you see how this is basically a start of a gay porno?

Dean tries to pull himself together. There was absolutely nothing weird about this when they had P.E. last week, and Dean and Cas were the last people in the showers, and Dean sang “Thunderstruck” off-key until Cas snapped a towel at him.

Christ, that actually happened. Were they supposed to be fooling around in the showers that time, too?

“Dean, you’ve got ten minutes,” Cas calls him, and Dean snaps back into focus. He really needs to get over himself, and just get undressed, hit the showers, and wipe his mind clear of anything that Chuck might have put there.

“Coming,” he answers, and then cringes at himself for choosing that particular wording. He does not need any more unfortunate images in his head.

Dean undresses quick, simply throwing his clothes off before he can reason with himself otherwise, and then slowly, as if he was headed to a death row, he walks to the showers.

There are actually walls separating the stalls, but there are no doors to them, so he gets a look at Castiel’s backside and the water running down over the curve of his spine, before Dean violently jerks his head elsewhere. Cas is using the last stall, so Dean, despite almost always taking the stall next to Cas’s, takes the one on the opposite end. Cas doesn’t comment, and Dean quickly turns on the shower, hoping that he will drown in the water. No such luck: the water pressure is poor, and there isn’t much warm water left, so Dean grumbles and showers with lukewarm water in a quick and efficient manner.

He flinches when he hears Castiel shut off the shower, and then listens to the sounds of Cas rubbing the towel on his hair, and then the shuffle as Cas puts the towel on his waist, and why the fuck is he picturing Cas in nothing but a towel?

Goddamnit, Chuck.

Dean tenses as Cas walks by, but then the door shuts closed, and Dean lets out a breath. He’s peacefully alone in the showers, with no best-friend-meant-to-be-his-lover in sight, and he concentrates on washing his hair.

“Dean, five minutes!”

Dean drops the shampoo bottle. He decides to leave his hair alone, debates about picking up the bottle for an additional minute before bending over and picking up so fast that he almost slips, and then turns the shower off. He grabs a towel and wraps himself up in it like it’s his sole salvation, and takes a breath before forcing himself to go back to the changing room.

Cas has his back turned to Dean, wearing nothing but boxers. Dean almost hyperventilates.

“You’re gonna be late,” Cas notes, nonchalantly, as if they’re not almost naked in a closed space with no one else around. Dean lets out a pitiful sound (something akin to “eep!”) when Cas looks over his shoulder, and pauses when he sees Dean standing still and clutching the towel.

“Dean, are you alright?”

“Peachy!” Dean squeaks. He finally moves to the benches and to his bag, but he positively can’t let go of the towel while he feels Cas’s eyes linger on him. He simply can’t let go of the towel. His clothes seem to mock him, laying peacefully on the bench.

And he still _definitely_ feels Cas’s eyes on him.

“Cas, uh…”

“Hm?”

“Could you… turn around?”

“What?”

“Don’t, don’t make me say it. Chuck would have a field day.”

“Chuck? Dean, what’s this all about?” They’re now standing face to face, because apparently Dean decided that direct confrontation would be best, and he really didn’t think this through, because he’s still only wearing the towel and Cas is staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Dean refuses to let his gaze linger lower than Cas’s cheekbones.

“Dean, you are acting irrationally,” Cas grumbles. “What’s different about this? We’ve been in this situation a hundred times before.”

“Because we’re naked!” Dean blurts out. “That, that, that apparently means we should make out, according to Chuck’s gospel!”

Cas stares at him. It does, admittedly, look very intimidating even when you take into account the fact that Cas is only wearing his boxers (hilariously, orange).

“I can promise you that I’m not going to suddenly fling myself at you and start kissing you against my will,” Cas finally says. “And I very much doubt that you’d do that, either.”

“Well—”

“Dean, just put your damn clothes on.”

When put like that, Dean can’t argue.

 

* * *

 

Dean feels bad about his little irrational spell the rest of the day, and before the final bell rings, he finds Cas and apologizes. Cas brushes it aside, but Dean still feels bad.

“I promise I’ll try to act normally from now on,” Dean says.

“Dean, even your normal is highly questionable.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Dean says, and Cas grins. Dean’s relieved that they’re back to their usual rapport, and running high on that feeling, he adds, “You still wanna see that monster movie marathon on Saturday?”

“I won’t have my car,” Cas says. “Balthazar’s going out of town.”

“He still lives with you?” Dean teases, and Cas swats him in the arm, gently.

“He’s been spending a lot of time with someone.” Cas shrugs. “He’s at her place a lot.”

“Well, that’s good, I suppose,” Dean says. “But it’s no problem. I can ask dad for a car.”

“Do you think Jo would be interested in joining us?”

That’s a rhetorical question, and they both know it. Jo loves trashy horror movies and monster movies, so only her being grounded would keep her away. Pam and Ash usually don’t want to join them – though Pam does sometimes, as she says she likes the atmosphere of drive-in movies – but with what’s showing, Dean knows that they’d say no.

“I’ll ask her tomorrow,” Dean says. “Hey, I haven’t seen Anna in a while. You think she’d be interested?”

“I don’t know,” Cas frowns. “I can ask, but I don’t think so. The last horror movie we watched together was _Saw_ , and she claims she had nightmares for two weeks after that. But that was a year ago.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

In the end, Anna declines the invitation, with “a pure look of horror on her face,” as Cas puts it. Dean also asks Jo the next day at Psychology, but Jo says that she already has plans for the weekend. Dean suspects that that’s an euphemism for “I got grounded again.” Her loss, Dean shrugs, and is already mentally planning what route to take to the drive-in and where they should stop to eat, when it hits Dean that he’s going out with Cas. Alone. As a _friend_ , but the universe apparently thinks otherwise, because a movie and a dinner always equal a date, and holy hell, what if the universe makes him send Cas flowers or something as horrifying as that?

Dean might be on the verge of panic when he corners Chuck in Friday afternoon and clutches to Chuck’s shirt as if a drowning man.

“Chuck, you’ve got to tell me what happens next.”

“Get off of me!” Chuck yells. Dean lets go of his shirt, but doesn’t back off. “Dean, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I have to know,” Dean says. His eyes are wild. “I have to know so I can avoid playing this stupid game of faith.”

“I think you need to go home, sleep for a few more hours and come back when you’re sane.”

“I can’t sleep when there are possible alternate realities happening around me!”

“It’s not going to make anything better if I—”

“Just tell me!”

Chuck sighs. Then he searches his shoulder bag and hands Dean the notebook.

“Just keep it,” Chuck mutters. Dean’s not listening, because he’s too busy pouring over the scenes of him and Cas having shower sex. Chuck shakes his head and leaves him be.

 

* * *

 

Dean spends the next three hours making a bullet point list of things he shouldn’t do under any circumstances, if he wants to escape the future Chuck has outlined. It consists of inane things that somehow spiral into an all-out panic, because Dean’s list starts with “do not touch Cas’s hand”, and ends with “do not have sex in the car” and “for the love of god DON’T KISS HIM.”

The list doesn’t help. Dean spends the next ten hours overthinking absolutely every detail, down to what he should wear, until he realizes that he’s acting as if this was a real date and a big deal, which it _is not_ , and after that epiphany, he goes to beat Sammy in _Tekken Tag Tournament_ and proceeds to not think about the not-date until it is five minutes before he has to leave. That’s when he starts to overthink everything again. In blind panic, he calls Jo.

“Jo, what should I wear?” Dean blurts out the second he hears Jo pick up.

There’s an absolute silence on the line, and if not for the occasional rustle of breath, Dean would think the call disconnected.

“Dean, what are you doing?” Jo finally asks.

“I’m going to movies with Cas and Chuck’s visions say that it’s going to be a date and I don’t want it to be a date!”

Jo’s silent for a moment. “Dean, you’re my best friend, but if you call me again during the next twenty-four hours, and you don’t need help burying a body or delivering a child, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

“My life is miserable,” Dean whines.

“The universe loves you enough to tailor you a shiny, alternate future. Now go play,” Jo cruelly says, and hangs up.

Dean notices that he’s already five minutes late to pick up Cas, and in the panic that follows, he does manage to pull himself together. He throws on the first thing he sees – a simple t-shirt, plaid over-shirt and jeans, what he usually wears – and rushes out of the door. His neat list of things to avoid, as well as Chuck’s notebook, stay behind on his desk.

“Dean,” his father’s voice stops him just when he’s stepping outside. “You’re going to the movies with Cas, right?”

“Yeah?”

John hands him the keys to Impala. Dean stares at the keys on his palm and doesn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.

“Really?”

“It’s a drive-in. That’s practically a car show,” dad says. Dean grins back, and the joy of getting to loan the Impala overrides whatever else he’s feeling right then.

“Thanks, dad,” Dean says. “Bye!”

“Have fun!” his mom yells from the kitchen, for the first time that day, Dean thinks that he actually might.

He calms down on the ride over to Cas’s house, and actually manages to forget his fears for a second. It’s silly to be worried over this – they’re just two friends going to the movies. It’s nothing they haven’t done before.

Cas’s brother Gabriel is on the front lawn when Dean arrives. He’s crouching by the flower bench, which instantly makes Dean suspicious, because he hasn’t ever seen Gabriel interested in flowers. Perhaps if there is the possibility of growing poisonous things involved.

“Hello, Dean-o!” Gabe grins when he steps out of the car.

Dean’s never been able to decide if he absolutely loathes Gabriel with all of his being, or if he loves the guy to death. Gabriel is one of those people whose personality is extremely polarizing: he’s a lovable goof who makes fun of everything and everyone, but at the same time, he’s also that kid who ticked off every warning sign of a future serial killer by burning ant nests and collecting bugs as a ten-year-old. Gabriel has mellowed out after he started at the local college, and possibly transformed into a responsible adult, but that remains to be seen. Dean doesn’t really believe Gabriel could behave responsibly anywhere, unless he was in charge of a candy factory.

“Hey, Gabe,” Dean says, shutting the car door and coming to the threshold when there’s no sign of Cas. “Gardening? Or is this related to a clever murder plot?”

“Why not both?”

The scary part is, Dean can’t say for sure that Gabe’s joking. He’s saved from answering when the front door opens, and Mrs. Collins steps into view.

“Oh, hello, Dean,” Mrs. Collins says. “Castiel is still in his room. Please come in for a minute.”

“Thanks,” Dean smiles. He leaves Gabriel to be with his flowers, and follows Mrs. Collins inside to the kitchen. Mrs. Collins offers him chocolate chip cookies – freshly baked, of course – and while Dean waits for Cas, he munches down one and talks to Mrs. Collins. He’s always liked her; despite her gentle appearance and soft voice, she’s a tough-as-nails lawyer, and despite her long hours at work, it always feels like she truly is present when she’s with you. Dean has never heard a single complaint against her from Cas, Gabriel or Balthazar – or Anna – but then again, Cas probably wouldn’t complain even if he had something to say.

Cas rushes downstairs a few minutes later, his hair still damp from shower and pulling on a grayish-blue t-shirt. Dean diverts his gaze before he can get a suspiciously good look of Cas’s stomach and the trail of dark hair that starts just above the line of his jeans.

“Sorry!” he sheepishly apologizes. “Lost the track of time.”

“What were you doing, planning to take over the world?”

“Among other things.” Cas pulls his tennis shoes on. “Jo sent me a curious message.”

“Um.”

“She told me to confiscate your phone and throw it in the trash.”

“She’s probably just angry that she’s grounded and can’t come with us,” Dean quickly says. Cas doesn’t question that, luckily.

“Don’t stay out too late,” Mrs. Collins reminds them and kisses Castiel on the cheek before they leave.

Despite his earlier concerns, Dean is actually able to relax when they enter the drive-in and the movies start. They have a fun time riffing on the silly movies, sometimes talking about other things when the movie’s too boring, or stuffing their faces with candy and popcorn. There’s a comfortable companionship between them, even when there are long lulls of conversation, and Dean throws himself into that, relieved that he doesn’t have to worry about anything and can just _be_ here.

Cas is drowsy when they finally decide to leave in the middle of the last movie, and Dean agrees – the movie isn’t that interesting, and it’s getting late. They throw the trash in the backseat, and Dean turns the key.

The Impala won’t start.

No. Oh no. He avoided everything else. He argued them out of going to a dinner, did not send Cas flowers or hold his hand. Chuck’s alternate future _cannot_ be happening right now.

“No,” Dean says in horror.

“It won’t start?” Cas asks, somewhat more alert now.

“It won’t start!” Dean repeats. “This is ridiculous! Dad keeps it in perfect condition! There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it!”

It’s no use: Dean tries and tries, but the Impala simply won’t start. Dean knows that dad always keeps a small toolbox in the back of the car (because he’s overly careful like that), but even when Dean pops the hood open, he can’t see anything wrong. Cas gives him light by holding up his cellphone, but it’s not enough, or then Dean just can’t find the problem. Frustrated, Dean shuts the hood, and they head back inside the car, wondering what they should do next. Around them, other people start to get ready and leave, because the movie ends, and soon, they’re one of the last ones left in the field.

“Fucking Chuck,” Dean says, and bashes his head against the steering wheel. This is so out of the realm of fair.

“Dean.”

“And I tried so hard to avoid this!”

“Dean,” Cas repeats, but the calmness is starting to dissolve from his voice, “What part of story is this?”

“The car—” Dean can’t say it. He can’t say it. Cas stares at him, blue eyes shining in the odd lighting, and Dean forces himself to spit out, “The car sex scene.”

Cas’s eyebrows shoot up. “Our first time should be in a car?”

“Hey, at least it’s not in the Ford.”

“Wouldn’t that be incredibly uncomfortable and unromantic, though?”

Dean snorts, but truly, he agrees. He still remembers the inexperienced fumbling, uncomfortable angles and knocking heads into the roof of the car in the small space with Cassie Robinson on his sixteenth birthday. It hadn’t mattered much back then, but when they’d broken up two weeks later and his dad had confronted him about the ripped leather on the backseat (seriously, how and when had that happened?), the memory had suddenly turned into one of the most uncomfortable and awkward experiences that Dean has ever had.

Cas, bless his innocent and bright soul, snaps Dean out of his memories. ”I hope you realize that if you try anything with me here, I’ll punch you in the groin so hard that you will never walk straight again.”

“Dude, you don’t have to tell me. Same,” Dean shudders.

“We can just sit in an uncomfortable silence until the situation passes.”

“Okay.”

They sit approximately five seconds in silence, before Cas snorts, and Cas laughing always makes Dean feel better, so he starts to laugh, which makes Cas laugh in earnest, and from that on, it just spirals into a full on roar of laughter.

“Fuck, this is weird,” Dean wheezes when he finally regains his breath.

“What, not having sex in your dad’s car?”

Dean snorts with laughter, and Cas smirks, satisfied to have made Dean feel better. They sit in a silence for a bit, and then, just because he has a feeling, Dean tries the ignition again.

The Impala finally, finally sputters into life, albeit very reluctantly.

“See?” Cas says. “Nothing happened. We didn’t do anything we didn’t want to do.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Dean, you need to stop obsessing over this,” Cas says. “Just let it go.”

Dean doesn’t know where Cas finds that kind of inner peace, because Dean hasn’t the slightest clue where he would even begin the search for it. But he trusts Cas’s judgment, and he trusts Cas, so he figures that he can trust Cas’s inner peace, too.

“Okay,” Dean says, softly, but Cas smiles. Hesitantly, Dean smiles back.


	4. Act II, Scene 2

September comes along, and then seems to pass just as quickly. Dean finds it hard to keep his word to Cas, and he still finds himself reading Chuck’s notebook from time to time, but really, every time he does that, he just sends himself down a spiral of emotions, and before long, he realizes that he simply needs to physically let the notebook go. It doesn’t bring him any peace of mind even if he reads that; rather, he starts to obsess over every alternate scene and compares them to what happened in real life. He also starts to get upset over the fact that there aren’t any more scenes for him to anticipate, which is downright stupid, because he took the notebook from Chuck and hasn’t asked for more reading material. It’s not like the scenes appear by themselves. Finally, Dean comes to a resolution.

“You keep that,” he says one Thursday morning to Jo, when they’re sitting in the classroom a few minutes early. Jo gives him a quizzical look, and then picks up the notebook from her desk.

“What is this?” she asks.

“If you value your sanity, don’t read it too closely,” Dean answers. Jo raises her brows, opens the notebook from a random page and starts to read.

Jo probably wouldn’t appreciate Dean laughing at her, so he doesn’t, but the look on her face is priceless.

“I didn’t really believe it,” Jo finally says. “But I’m here too! Like, as a quirky side-character, but still.”

“Well, you get one or two good one-liners,” Dean says. “It’s better than starring in a gay porno.”

“What, I don’t get any action here?” Jo asks and starts to furiously leaf through the notebook.

“I’m charging you for all the brain bleach I’ll need for this,” Dean says, and Jo hits him with the notebook.

Dean’s not sure if the universe gives him a real break from all the insanity, or if he simply doesn’t notice the oddities anymore, but after he’s given Jo the notebook, he feels like a weight is lifted from his shoulders.

Anna texts him one day, asking about modeling for her art project, which Dean had honestly forgotten about. Feeling guilty, he texts back immediately and agrees to meet her one rainy Tuesday afternoon after school. Cas has a longer day than they do, so Dean and Anna bike back to the Collins household through the rain.

“So, you need me naked, right?” Dean jokes when they climb upstairs to Anna’s room.

“Absolutely,” Anna grins. “Preferably handcuffed and blindfolded.”

“You know the way to my heart,” Dean says. Anna’s room is almost the complete opposite of Castiel’s. Besides being, well, situated opposite of Cas’s room, Anna has posters of famous paintings rather than movies hanging on her walls. It’s neat, like Cas’s, but whereas Cas still has sloppy spots here and there, like laundry thrown carelessly on the floor or unmade bed, Anna’s room is pristine. Her bed is made, all the clothes on her chair are folded, and even the books on her desk are in neat stacks.

Dean puts his bag on the floor and waits as Anna picks up her art supplies and adjusts the light on her desk. She takes the chair and places it in the middle of the room, gesturing Dean to take a seat, and sits down on the bed.

“Now,” she says, “just take a position. Anything that you can hold for five minutes.”

Dean sits down and puts his elbows on his knees, and leans forward. Anna sets the timer on her cellphone and begins to draw.

There’s a silence for the first few minutes, with only Anna’s irregular huffs of annoyance towards her drawing.

“I’m sure it doesn’t deserve that amount of criticism,” Dean says when Anna narrows her eyes at the drawing.

“You haven’t even seen it,” Anna says, but she smiles. The timer goes off, and Dean changes into another position, this time sitting backwards, straddling the chair.

“I think I’d want to study art,” Anna confesses after a few moments of silence. “Art history. I think it’s fascinating.”

“Huh,” Dean says. “Sounds exactly like you.”

“Thanks,” Anna says. “Do you know what you’re going to do after school?”

“Mmh,” Dean says. “I don’t know. Go to college, study something. Dad keeps telling me I can always join his firm, but I don’t know if I’d want to be a mechanic.”

“Cas says you pretty much are a mechanic already.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I wanna do that for a living. More like… design things. Design how they work.”

“Time,” Anna says, when the timer goes off. “Three minute poses, now.”

Dean crosses his legs and leans slightly over the edge of the chair, but putting his other hand on the backrest to keep his position. Anna starts to draw again, this time clearly faster and with broader lines.

From this position, Dean notices the only movie poster on the wall. It’s smaller than the art posters, and tacked very close to the bed, so it’s slightly obscured by Anna’s figure, but Dean would recognize that logo anywhere.

“Harry Potter?”

Anna smiles. “It’s my childhood. Shush.”

“Not judging. I’ve read the books.” Dean starts feel a strain in his back, and to ignore it, he continues, “So, you’ve seen all the movies?”

“Multiple times. We marathoned them with Jo just last week.”

Dean almost falls off of the chair. “You and Jo are pretty good friends, then?”

Anna laughs. “You really haven’t noticed, have you?”

Dean half-heartedly disagrees. It’s true, though; he has been neglecting everyone lately, with what the Chuck situation and focusing on his own problems.

“You don’t sit with us at lunch,” he says then. He thinks he notices a slight blush covering Anna’s cheeks, but it’s hard to say because of the light aimed at him and not her.

“You all seem,” Anna says after a pause, “a really… tight-knit group. I don’t… I don’t want to intrude.”

“What, would you feel odd sitting in the same table as your cousin?”

That hits a nerve, because Anna stops drawing for a moment and looks at Dean.

“Dean, I… I’m a newcomer. I don’t really fit in. And I don’t want to use Castiel as a buffer.”

“It’s not like that,” Dean argues. “Jo seems to like you. I like you. Pam would love you. And Ash. And Cas can just suck it up.” He frowns. “Besides, aren’t you guys close, anyway?”

“Yes, but…” She starts to draw again. “I think we’re both still getting used to this. It’s difficult to go from talking over the phone or internet to living in the same house and having the same friends.”

They’re quiet for a while. Anna finishes her drawing and asks Dean to change the position. Dean shifts so that he’s crouching on the chair and looking at the ceiling, and Anna picks up the pen again.

“You should sit with us,” Dean says then.

Anna doesn’t answer right away.

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she finally says, and it’s settled.

There’s slight confusion over seating when Anna does show up the next day at lunch, and hesitantly asks, “Any room for me?”

Jo instantly smiles. “Sure. Come on, you can sit next to me.” Then she seems to catch herself, and looks at Pam.

Pamela instantly scoots over. There is, in fact, already an empty seat, which up until now has been between Pamela and Ash, because there have been five of them and six seats, but with Anna, all the seats are finally filled.

“Thank you,” Anna says as she sits down. Jo beams happily, and leans forward to look at Pam.

“Sorry, sweetheart, you had to give up your honorable place.”

“I’m wounded,” Pam says. “Now I need to figure out a new way into your heart, that’s all.”

Jo snorts, and Dean feels like he’s missing something, but before he can linger on that, Ash suddenly says, “So here’s an idea: movies with only female actors,” and the conversation suddenly shifts.

“Do those even exist?” Jo wonders.

“Amateur movies,” Cas says without looking up from his book. Today, it’s _The God Delusion_.

“Lesbian porn doesn’t count,” Dean says, and Cas nearly rips the page he’s turning. Anna bites her lips in amusement.

“I’m trying to go over every movie I’ve watched this year, and I can’t come up with anything,” Pam says.

“ _Takarazuka_ ,” Cas suggests, again without looking up from his book.

“That’s theater,” Anna counters.

They argue over this for a while, until everyone admits that they can’t think of a single movie that’d fit the criteria. Somehow, the topic slowly becomes “we’re having a movie night at Dean’s house next weekend,” and Dean finds himself agreeing.

“As long as it’s not _Sex and The City_ , I’m in,” he says.

“You like it,” Jo says.

“Doesn’t anyone believe in taking some secrets to the grave?” Dean grumbles.

 

* * *

 

September tips over to October, and then, one weekend, Dean claims the living room to have the agreed movie night there. Sam tries to sneak in when the others arrive, but he’s sent upstairs, because they’re watching _Kill Bill_ , and that’s not for Sam’s eyes, according to mom. Sam grumbles but stomps upstairs, presumably to play something violent on his computer just to rebel in his own, little way.

“So,” Dean says when everyone’s arrived, “mom made pie.”

“Aww, did you help her?” Jo asks.

“Shut up. My mom’s pie is holy and anyone who insults it will be banned forever from entering this house.”

“Dean takes pie very seriously,” Jo stage-whispers to Anna. They’ve claimed one of the two armchairs, with Anna sitting in the middle and Jo on the right armrest, and when Anna laughs, her forehead lands on Jo’s shoulder. Jo seems pleased and doesn’t mind.

“I brought popcorn,” Ash says helpfully. They arrange everything on the coffee table – there’s probably more food than they can eat, but at least it looks awesome, displayed like that.

“Showtime!” Pam exclaims, and flops down on the other armchair. This leaves the couch for Ash, Dean and Cas, who sit down in that order. Dean’s the ultimate guardian of the remote control (a title coined by Ash, two seconds before they start), and when everyone’s settled, he dramatically presses play.

There’s a little talk during the movie – mostly, they just concentrate on the film, because none of them has seen it before – and most of the talking is done by Anna, who sometimes says “oh my god,” when something really bloody happens, which is followed by Jo playfully covering her eyes and saying that she can tell Anna when it is safe to watch.

Dean’s relaxing and enjoying himself so much that when he realizes that he’s been led into a trap, it’s too late.

It’s towards the end of the movie when Dean notices that he’s sitting significantly closer to Cas than Ash, despite being in the middle of a three-person couch. Cas’s right hand is in his lap while the other rests on the armrest, and Dean’s thigh is pressing lightly against Cas’s elbow. Dean’s left hand is on the backrest, behind Cas, and that’s when he suddenly realizes that fucking Chuck got him again.

Oh. Oh no.

The universe hasn’t stopped tormenting him. It’s gotten _cleverer_.

Because why else would he be noticing with such clarity how close Cas’s neck is to his hand on the backrest, and how he can actually feel the static electricity passing between his hand and the longer strands of hair in Cas’s neck? And why else would his palms be sweating a little, and why else would he stare at the lone hand on Cas’s lap and his own hand, casually lying palm upwards on his lap?

He’s got to get out of here. Figure something out. Beg Jo for the notebook, or, wait, that’s no use, because this scene wasn’t in it. He needs Chuck to write out more, so he can actively avoid getting into situations where he’s _this_ close to cuddling with his best friend.

Christ, he’s going to flip his shit if he later finds this scene in Chuck’s writing and it’s supposed to be couch sex.

“Dean?” Cas quietly asks, and Dean realizes he’s been staring at Cas’s profile for a while now. There’s evident concern in Cas’s voice, which makes Dean only feel guilty. His eyes seem even larger than usual, and the light emitting from the television makes his blue eyes look like otherworldly cerulean.

“I’m fine,” Dean says.

_I’m screwed_ , Dean thinks.

 

* * *

 

“You’ve got to write me more,” Dean tells Chuck at school on Monday.

“It’s too early for this,” Chuck groans and tries to drown himself in his mugful of coffee.

“I _need_ to know, Chuck.”

“It’s always too early for this,” Chuck mutters. “I regret ever telling you anything.”

“Chuck,” Dean stresses.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I didn’t like being locked in a closet,” Dean sarcastically replies. Chuck shakes his head.

“Chuck,” Dean repeats, “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee for every day for the rest of the year.”

Chuck raises his brows, but says nothing. Dean sighs. “Two cups.”

Chuck takes another huge swig of coffee before he gives in.

“Have at it,” Chuck says as he hands Dean a new notebook. It’s considerably less tattered, only covered in some coffee stains, and Dean eagerly flips it through. Chuck has gotten better at writing down the scenes (or has just given up censorship), because there aren’t any blacked out sentences or crossed over sections. His handwriting is still small and messy, but Dean’s gotten better at reading that, so he quickly gets the gist of what is to come.

He looks at Chuck in silent horror. “What is this shit? Flowers in Cas’s hair? Cuddling in a bed? Kissing during truth or dare? What are we, eight?”

“I’m just a writer,” Chuck says.

“I am _not_ the little spoon!”

“Writing is hard,” Chuck mutters. “And it’s even harder when your own characters criticize you.”

 

* * *

 

Dean successfully keeps his fears at bay for a few weeks, and when nothing dramatic happens, he lets his guard down momentarily. October draws to its end, but Dean only realizes what day it is when Meg corners him in the hallway.

“I’ve got an invitation for you,” Meg announces.

“For your funeral?”

Meg glares at him. Dean thinks it’s uncanny how well Meg is emulating Castiel’s angry, slanted eyes.

“Funny, Winchester. But not that far off the mark, really.”

Dean blinks. Meg rolls her eyes.

“It’s Halloween this weekend.”

“Halloween party?” Dean brain finally wakes up from a coma. “Is the costume optional, or?”

“Optional for everyone else but you. You have to arrive naked.”

Dean winces before he can stop himself, and Meg laughs. She pats him on the cheek. “You’re adorable. Keep that up.”

“I try,” Dean says.

“Saturday at seven,” Meg says. “Bring Anna, too. I don’t have her number.”

Dean mentions this at lunch to Anna, whose pretty eyes widen at the invitation.

“I don’t have a costume,” she says, worrying her lip.

“Don’t worry about that,” Jo says, patting Anna’s hand. Their fingers momentarily curl together, ending in a light squeeze, before Jo suddenly removes her hand. “Nobody cares about that. Last year, only half of the people had a costume.”

“Just throw a white sheet on and cut holes on it,” Dean says.

“Dean, you’re not five anymore,” Castiel says. Today’s book is _Drawing Down The Moon_ , which looks like it’s too heavy to be carried around in school, but Cas hasn’t complained once about it.

“I was adorable,” Dean says, pursing his lips in mock-anger.

“I think I have a halo and wings left from middle school,” Anna muses out loud. “I could go as an angel.”

“Can I be your devil to that?” Jo asks, eyes shining, and Anna gives her a wide smile in return.

In the end, Dean doesn’t come up with a costume and decides to go just as himself. He went last year as a dentist (which was, at least judging by Sammy’s screaming, a little _too_ scary), but he’s too lazy to find the costume, and besides, he has a vague memory of dad using the green over-shirt to work, so it’s probably covered in grease by now. Castiel has gone as Constantine for two years straight, so Dean is surprised when he opens the door for Cas and sees just, well, Cas. He’s wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt with a picture of a wolf howling at the moon and a leather jacket, so at least there was an attempt to keep in with the theme.

“No costume?” Dean asks. Cas raises an eyebrow.

“You’re disappointed?”

“Well, you’ve used the same costume for two years. Figured you’d just use it again.”

“My, uh,” Cas looks away, “mom shrunk the coat. Accidentally.” He then looks pointedly at Dean’s regular jeans and a grey t-shirt with the text “Relax, I’m hilarious.”

“No dentist this year?”

Dean grins. “I hear I’m scarier this way.”

Dean’s mom emerges from the living room when Dean’s putting on his shoes. “I trust you two to stay alive and not do anything stupid.”

“I’ll look after him,” Cas solemnly promises, which makes Dean flush. Mary smiles and reaches up to give Dean a kiss – Dean’s still not completely used to being taller than her, and instinctively ducks down.

“Mom,” Dean says, trying to get away from her kisses. Mary laughs and plants one on Dean’s cheek, anyway.

“Have fun and be safe,” she says.

Despite reading Chuck’s writing back and forth and trying to analyze what scenes will occur and when, the universe seems determined to keep him guessing and surprise him every time. Reading the passages about Meg’s party was hard the first time around, but Dean now knows what to do in order to avoid that.

Simple. Don’t get jealous over Cas and cockblock him. He can absolutely do that.

Take that, universe. He’s seen this once before, so he can and _will_ avoid it the second time.

Dean is feeling so good that when Cas pulls up in Meg’s driveway and kills the ignition, Cas turns to give Dean a confused look.

“You’re really looking forward to this, aren’t you?”

“Yup,” Dean says, ready to prove the universe otherwise.

The party’s in full swing when they arrive. Anna and Jo, who arrived earlier and together, spot them from the door and come to greet them, both already a little buzzed. Anna makes a very cute angel in her white, long dress, glittery halo and white wings, and Jo’s devil costume is funny in how kitchy it is, down to the red tail and red horns. She’s otherwise dressed in black, so they make a contrasting pair.

“You didn’t dress up!” Jo says, pointing accusingly at Dean. “Even Pam did!”

That’s true: Pam is apparently Lara Croft, which looks downright hilarious next to Ash’s Indiana Jones. But luckily, Dean and Cas aren’t the only ones without costumes; like Jo told Anna, only half of the people have dressed up.

“Drink up, I’ll look better after that,” Dean says.

Jo snorts and falls towards Anna, who gracefully takes her in a one-armed hug. She smiles at them, apologizing wordlessly, and leads Jo away.

“Those two seem suspiciously close,” Dean mutters, and Cas laughs. They greet Meg next – Dean braces himself for it, but Cas simply hugs Meg, and they don’t trade a single kiss – and after Dean insults Meg’s devil costume and Meg insults Dean’s Dean costume, Cas sighs and goes to get them cups of punch. Dean and Cas stay and talk to Meg some more, but after the doorbell rings and Meg goes to answer it, they are both almost immediately pulled into a bear-hug.

“Winchester! Collins!”

Dean turns around, trying to protect his drink. “Hi, Victor.”

Victor Henriksen is one of those friends that Dean usually only sees at school – they don’t hang out, but they’re friendly enough to talk between classes. Victor was in the same class as Dean and Cas in middle school, and they’ve been friendly ever since, but never particularly close.

“You still owe me a lunch,” Victor reminds Cas. Cas raises his hand as a sign of defeat.

“Remind me the next time you see me at the cafeteria.”

“Will do. Now, I have a mission for you. You’re just the two I need,” Victor says, and before they can protest, Victor pulls them into a ring of people. Dean sits down before he registers that there’s a bottle in the middle of the ring, and then his heart just about stops.

Shit. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. This is totally unfair, the truth or dare plot point doesn’t have any business happening at Meg’s goddamn Halloween party!

Dean is ready to bolt, but then Victor sits down, satisfied that he’s found a good number of players, and then Ruby is already spinning the bottle and it’s too late to run. Dean stiffens, trying to transmit to Cas telepathically that he needs an excuse to get the hell out of here, but Cas has temporarily turned off said telepathy. The bottle lands on Crowley, who looks unimpressed when Ruby dares him to sing a love song to Meg. Crowley does that, while Meg looks annoyed, and after everyone’s finished laughing, they continue the game.

A few rounds go by, and Dean’s sweating through his t-shirt, because he can’t think of an excuse to leave the game. Besides, Cas is his ride home, so he can’t exactly just stand up and leave.

Goddamn Chuck. This is all his fault.

Sometime after Ruby makes out with Lilith, the bottle finally lands on Cas. Dean’s heart painfully leaps to his chest.

“So, truth or dare?” Ruby asks.

“Truth,” Cas shrugs.

“Well, let’s start off easy. Who was your first kiss?”

As far as Dean knows, Cas’s first kiss had been Daphne Whatshername, back in seventh grade. For some reason, Dean is pretty sure the incident where Cas had run away from the library and knocked over a bookshelf in his hurry was directly related to that experience, but Cas has never talked to him about it. Daphne had refused to talk to Cas since then, which is an admirable feat, considering they live right next to each other, share the same classes and frequent the same grocery store.

Talk about awkward.

Cas doesn’t look put off by the question, though. He simply says, “Daphne Allen,” and that’s that.

Dean watches Cas from the corner of his eye, trying to assess Cas’s profile. Besides Meg, Dean doesn’t think Cas has ever been with anyone. Unless there is a whole new secret side to Cas that he doesn’t know about, Daphne and Meg are the only ones he’s ever kissed. There’s a long gap between those two as well, and Dean momentarily wonders why. Cas is nice, Cas is smart, and Cas is very awesome. He’d probably be a very good boyfriend, as he tends to remember just about every detail about everybody. He’s kind and considerate, and even if he screws something up, you can be sure that his intentions are always good. And, objectively, Cas is not that bad looking. He’s got a pretty profile, all sharp lines, a hair that begs for fingers to comb through it, and eyes that you could happily drown in.

Dean wonders what it would be like to kiss Cas. Would Cas be inexperienced and sloppy? Or would he be aggressive, like he seemed with Meg?

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Cas is just… Cas. Kissing him for truth or dare, fine, whatever. There are worse people on the planet that Dean could be dared to kiss.

Victor spins the bottle after telling an embarrassing tale of how he ended up vomiting behind a bush during his first date, and Dean already knows that the bottle is going to land on him. It spins and spins, slows down, and lo and behold, of course it stops at Dean.

“So, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Dean says, for reasons that he’s not exactly clear on.

This is it. He is going to have to kiss Cas. Holy shit. This is really happening, then. No way out of it. Everyone will think he’s a wuss if he can’t do such a simple thing as kissing his best friend.

It’s just a kiss. Doesn’t mean a thing. Not a thing.

Just kiss him and be done with it.

Dean is so concentrated on trying to calm himself down that when Victor finally announces Dean’s dare, he misses it and blinks at Victor’s direction.

“The what now?”

Victor looks oddly at him, and repeats, “I dare you to eat a handful of mud.”

Cas is not looking at Dean. Dean stares at his direction, unable to decide what he is feeling at the moment.

Eating mud. Sure thing. Easier than kissing your best friend.

Dean eats a handful of mud in a record time, excuses himself from the game and drowns his sorrows with three cups of punch that Meg has obviously spiked. He’s not sure why he’s so upset, or over what, but he doesn’t need a good reason for the fourth and fifth cups of punch. After the seventh, Cas finds him, trying to explain to a lonely houseplant in the corner why his life is miserable.

“Dean, I think you’ve had enough,” Cas comments.

“One,” Dean hiccups, raising his cup, “one more. For me and my friend.”

“That’s a ficus, Dean.”

“Are you, are you saying plants can’t be friends?”

“I’m saying that we should go.”

“Okay,” Dean happily agrees. He drowns the rest of his drink – not really noticing that there isn’t anything left in his cup – and lets Cas take the cup from his hand. Cas has nice hands. Gentle. Dean lets Cas take him by the arm and lead him to the car. Dean’s so focused on Cas’s hand on his waist that he completely misses Cas saying goodbyes for them both to Jo and Anna, who share an amused look when Cas pushes Dean towards the car.

“Maybe I should just kiss you and get it over with,” Dean slurs.

“Charming,” Cas counters.

“Don’t you wanna kiss me, Cas?”

“Not really.”

“Whyyy?” Dean wails, clinging to Cas’s neck. Cas peels him off finger by finger, and arranges Dean into a sitting position in the passenger seat.

“This really isn’t a conversation that you want to have when you’re drunk, Dean.”

“You’re… you’re so clever, Cas. And right.” Dean holds his head when Cas slams the door. “I should stop speaking.”

“That may be for the best,” Cas says, and starts the car. Dean nods off for the duration of the drive, only waking up when he hears the engine being shut off and a car door opening.

“Where are we?” Dean asks.

“My house.”

“This isn’t home.”

“I called your mom,” Cas says. He helps Dean out of the car, and slings Dean’s other arm over his shoulders. Dean immediately leans against Cas. “You can just sleep here tonight.”

They make their way slowly to the front door, and even slower up the stairs. Dean’s not even that drunk anymore, but he happily slumps against Cas and lets Cas dictate their steps.

“Do we have to sleep in the same bed?” Dean whines.

“Unless you want to sleep on the floor,” Cas replies easily.

“I don’t want to cuddle,” Dean whines when Cas lowers him to the bed. Cas’s movements slow for a bit as he removes Dean’s shoes and tucks Dean in, but then he simply shakes his head in exasperation.

“Where is this coming from, Dean?”

“Chuck’s goddamn visions,” Dean mutters. “Sleeping on the same bed leads to cuddling. And that leads to awkward confessions and I don’t wanna cuddle, Cas.”

Cas rolls his eyes, but Dean completely misses the gesture, because he’s too busy hugging a pillow.

“I don’t want to cuddle you either, Dean, so I see no problem here. Also, we’ve slept on the same bed several times before. Why would this be any different?”

“Just don’t molest me in my sleep.”

“Your trust in me is touching.”

“Whatever,” Dean mumbles. ”Can we sleep now?”

Cas settles next to Dean, so far away that there isn’t any hope for cuddling, and satisfied, Dean drifts off.

 

* * *

 

Words cannot describe how ashamed Dean is the next morning. When he wakes up, Cas has been up for hours and is, judging by the amount of coffee left in the coffeemaker, drinking his third cup by the time Dean stumbles to the kitchen.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Gabriel hollers. He’s in his pajamas (pink with white stripes, a joke gift from Balthazar last Christmas that Gabriel unironically loves) and eating pancakes. Cas sits to his right in the kitchen table, reading newspaper. Balthazar, whom Dean rarely sees anymore, is on the other side of the table, napping against his plate. Mrs. Collins is nowhere to be seen, for which Dean is grateful. He doesn’t think he’d be able to handle it if she saw him right now.

“I wanna die,” Dean answers.

“That just means that the party was great. Never regret anything, my friend,” Gabriel says, and continues to stuff pancakes into his mouth. Dean pours himself a cup of coffee, and sits down next to Cas.

“Morning,” Dean says to Cas.

“Morning,” Cas says. He doesn’t look up from the newspaper.

“I’m an idiot,” Dean says then.

“Possibly.”

“Sorry.”

Cas finally looks up from the paper. There’s a certainty in his eyes that Dean cannot read. “It’s okay.”

“Must you be so loud?” Balthazar grumbles from his plate, and Dean shuts up.

Dean’s parents are luckily forgiving: because Cas let them know that Dean would stay over, they don’t question Dean’s blood-shot eyes or tiredness, and let Dean keep quiet and nap throughout most of Sunday. When he wakes up, he spends most of his time playing with Sam, pointedly avoiding any communication that would take up more than one tenth of his brain capacity.

Dean didn’t think hangovers could last for two days, but that’s what he feels like when he sits down at their table at lunch on Monday and sees Anna and Jo kissing. He almost drops his tray, but he admirably regains his composure and sits down. Nobody else seems to think that there’s anything odd about Jo nipping on Anna’s upper lip playfully or Anna sliding her left hand through Jo’s hair. Cas is reading, Ash is reading over his shoulder, and Pam appears to be making love to her sandwich.

“Well, this is new,” Dean says. Anna and Jo separate, sharing a look.

“Dean, we’ve been dating since September,” Jo says.

“Oh,” Dean says. “Um, congrats?”

“I told you he didn’t know,” Anna says into Jo’s ear. Jo grins.

“He kinda lives in his own world.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Dean says. “Excuse me for getting caught up in fighting against the universe.”

“That’s a pretty dramatic take on you and Cas getting locked in a closet,” Jo points out.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Dean whines.

“Dean, I am on your side. You and Cas ending up together is not the end of the world.”

“Is there some sort of like, betting pool going on?” Dean asks, frustrated. “‘Guess correctly how long it’ll take for Cas and Dean to end up together?’” he says in an unnatural, high-pitched voice. There’s a confused silence as everyone just stares at Dean. Even Cas looks up from his book, and seems a bit disturbed.

“No, Dean,” Jo finally says. “Why would we bet on your sex life? Just… ew.”

“Oh.”

“Only you’d care so much about your sex life as to bet on it,” Jo mumbles.

That, actually, hits closer than Dean cares to admit. He does care about this whole… shebang too much. Way, way too much. What kind of people go towards the impossible? What kind of people actually try to challenge the whatthefuckever that is in charge of all this? Why is he fighting so hard against this?

Which is why on Friday, after going through the motions for the week and feeling like a puppet, Dean finds himself climbing up to the treehouse he and Cas built when they were seven with Chuck’s notebook in tow. The treehouse isn’t used as much nowadays: Sam still goes there during summertime to hang out with his friends, but for Dean, the treehouse has solely become a place where he goes to escape his problems. The treehouse is a familiar, comforting place that he’s always loved, but this time, even lounging on the hard floor and staring up at the ceiling where he and Cas pinned their drawings of each other (drawn at the prime age of eight, and they’re adorably crude) can’t lift his mood.

It gets so bad that apparently Cas notices, because he calls Dean that evening and knows exactly where Dean’s hiding without asking. He only needs to hear Dean’s defeated voice, and the next minute, he’s climbing up the rope ladder.

“I brought you your teddy,” Cas says.

“I’m not eight, Cas.”

“That’s odd. You seem to act like it.” Cas drops the teddybear (Flying Dutchman, that’s his name, because he’s got a leather jacket and flying goggles) on Dean’s chest and sits down on the floor, next to Dean. Dean picks up the teddy absently and puts it up properly, so that it’s sitting on his stomach.

“You’re upset,” Cas says.

“Ten points for that insight.”

“Dean, if this is about your inner gay crisis—”

“It’s not about some gay crisis!” Dean snaps. “I’m freaking out because the fucking universe is telling me to bang my best friend! The fucking _universe!_ ”

“Dean, we’ve been over this.” Cas sounds tired, and, honestly, Dean doesn’t blame him. He’s getting tired of freaking out over this, too.

“I’m scared,” Dean softly says.

“I know.”

“Like… what if it’s all true, on some level? What if there really are all those alternate realities, and, and your family finds out and kicks you out, because they’re homophobic or, or—”

“Why… would they kick me out?” Cas blinks. “Dean, you know my mother. In what universe would that happen?”

“I know,” Dean sighs. “I’m being stupid.”

“I’ve told you, the text doesn’t have to mean anything. The only meaning it has is the one you give it yourself.” Cas sighs. “If Chuck was right about everything, we would’ve by now had sex everywhere from the locker room to your dad’s Impala, which, need I remind you, sounds extremely uncomfortable, not to mention, rude towards your dad.”

“It _is_ extremely uncomfortable,” Dean remarks. That little confession makes Cas snort, and Cas laughing always makes Dean feel better. He smiles up at Cas. “So you’re not missing out on anything there.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Cas says. There’s a comfortable silence after that; Dean plays with Flying Dutchman, making it stand on his stomach and then dropping it into a sitting position, repeating this over and over again. He looks at Cas, who’s examining the drawings on the ceiling with a soft smile on his face.

“Hey.”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Do you wanna stay and watch _Star Wars_ with me?”

“Only if I get to tell you after every scene why it is not scientifically possible.”

“Dork,” Dean says. He doesn’t add, _I wouldn’t have it any other way_.


	5. Act II, Scene 3

There’s one fact that Dean’s been actively avoiding ever since he realized that the universe is out to get him. (Besides the obvious, that is.) He’s pushed the thought far, far away from his mind, but when he wakes up the next morning, it slowly dawns on him that it can’t go on like this. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Cas curled up on the other end of the couch, knees drawn close to his chest and head on the armrest. His hair is mussed, sticking to every direction, and there’s a light layer of stubble covering his jaw, making him look world-weary and uncomfortable at the small end of the couch. Dean’s feet are tucked under Cas’s, and Dean’s diagonally slouching against the backrest, taking up most of the space.

As Dean blinks the sleep away from his eyes, he looks at Cas and wonders if their friendship is going to come out of this unscathed. What if Chuck is right, and the plot points never stop appearing? What if, ten years down the line, they’ll still be pushed together under a mistletoe despite being on opposite ends of a room?

Dean’s not sure their friendship can take that. Obviously, they’ve put up with each other for fourteen years, almost as long as they’ve both lived, so all the signs should point to them being able to handle this bump in the road, but… this isn’t a regular bump in the road. They can’t fight about this and then ignore it until the tension grows unbearable, fight again and then make up. It’s going to keep showing up, indefinitely.

“Morning, sweetie,” Mary says when Dean drags himself to the kitchen. “There’s coffee for you.”

“Thanks,” Dean grunts. He pours himself a cup, and after three sips, he feels like a human again.

“Save some for Castiel,” Mary says when Dean sits down. “We’re out of coffee. John is out on a grocery run.”

“Mmh,” Dean says. He feels slightly embarrassed that he and Cas fell asleep on the couch, and no one bothered to wake them up. He’s not sure if it would have been better for them to sleep in Dean’s bed – considering that one drunken escapade at Cas’s – but at least they wouldn’t have been out in the open.

Dean’s not even sure why he cares so much. His thoughts are like this nowadays: getting jammed, or finding new, odd routes that he’s not sure he wants to follow.

“You didn’t wake us,” Dean says nonetheless. Mary hands him a slice of toast, which Dean gratefully takes.

“We tried not to. You seemed so tired.”

Dean is suddenly struck by how _normal_ this must be to his mom. How normal it is to have Castiel over, how normal it is for Dean and Cas to fall asleep on the couch after staying up and marathoning three _Star Wars_ movies, or how normal it is for his mom to automatically include Cas in her breakfast preparations. Even now, there’s a fifth space at the kitchen table, all set up for Cas, with a glass for orange juice and a cup for coffee. It’s details like this that strike Dean as magnificent – he’s been friends with this person for so long that his mom has seen it all happen.

“Mom, what were we like when we were kids? Like, me and Cas?” Dean asks, trying to sound nonchalant as he eats his toast.

Dean knows the story, of course. Dean and Cas have been best friends ever since they were four and met in the sandbox at the public playground; someone accidentally shoved Dean so hard that he fell face first into the sandbox, and Cas, having just begun to realize what empathy meant and could imagine how Dean felt, gripped Dean tight and raised him from the sand.

Dean, however, confused Cas with the unfortunate kid that had shoved him, and tried to push Cas down into the sand – only tried, though, because Cas was stronger than Dean, and they both ended up in the sand, wrestling for the upper hand. At this point, their mothers interfered, made both boys apologize, and chastised, Dean asked Cas to build a sandcastle with him. When it turned out to be the best sandcastle ever, Dean asked Cas to build another one with him the following day, and the day after that, and the day after, until they had become the tight duo of Dean n’ Cas, and would only be seen without the other if one of them was sick.

“What were you like?” Mary asks. “Like you are now, I suppose. It’s always been so easy with you two, you know.”

“Always?” Dean gulps.

“Well, there was that time that you decided to get married.”

Dean instantly buries his head in his hands. He should’ve believed Chuck. It’s _always_ too early for this.

“Oh, it was the cutest thing, honey. You walked to the playground together and held hands.”

Dean groans, mortified. “Mom…”

“And one fourth of July, you put a flower in Castiel’s hair and gave him half of your pie.” Mary puts her coffee cup down and smiles at Dean. “I have a picture of it somewhere.”

Dean doesn’t remember this, though. Neither does he remember the first time he and Cas met, or the first time Cas slept over, or the first time he went over to Cas’s house, or what kind of things they talked about when they were young. Cas has been such a constant presence in his life that rather than single memories, he has a certain feeling when he thinks about Cas’s house or Cas’s room: it’s laced with contentment, happiness, fun and trust. Of course he has some clear memories from the time they were young – such as sitting on a bench and eating ice cream side by side, watching their mothers talk – but those are more like colorful flashes in the constant stream that is _Cas_.

John comes back from the grocery run right then. He enters the house silently, wanting to let Cas sleep, and shows the bag of coffee triumphantly as he steps into the kitchen.

“My hero,” Mary says.

“Anything for you, dear,” John says. Dean pretends to gag, to his parents’ amusement.

John sits down, and Dean stops to listen as dad and mom talk about redecorating the bedroom upstairs. He can’t shake off the feeling that he’s missing something, that there’s something sneaking into his brain, and he just hasn’t noticed it yet.

“I’ll be upstairs,” Mary says after some time. She kisses John, and leaves. Dean stares at his half-full coffee cup and wonders.

So… if the universe really is trying to tell him something, pretty insistently, in fact… What—could it be possible that there really is something to it? Some grain of truth, buried under all the cruelty? Is there really a red string to all this, following him through the years and just waiting for Dean to uncover it?

John’s reading the paper when Dean wakes up from his thoughts. Dean hesitates, but only for a moment.

“Dad, uh,” Dean coughs, “have you, um, have you ever felt, like, uh, really, _really_ compelled to be with someone?”

“Hm?” John looks up from the newspaper.

“Did you… have you ever felt something like that? Like uh, the universe is telling you to get together with someone?”

“Well, I felt it with your mother,” John smiles. Dean’s entire world stops moving. “There was just this pull towards her, some sort of chemistry, and I just knew… I just knew she’d come into my life to stay.” John pats Dean on the shoulder as if to gather some pity manliness points. “It’s a good thing to feel something like that, son. Trust that feeling. Go for it.”

Dean can’t say anything to that, because he’s currently trying to wrap his head around the idea that his own father _ships_ him and Cas. Albeit unknowingly, but the point still stands.

Dean feels slightly insulted, for the lack of a better term, to get his father’s blessing without his father knowing what he’s talking about.

…What is he even on about? Blessing for what? Cas doesn’t have feelings for him, and he doesn’t really have feelings for Cas.

But what if… if there’s an alternate reality where Cas does—

No. That’s preposterous. He’s being idiotic. This is all just hypothetical, just his silly musings.

Cas stumbles into the kitchen right then, and Dean takes a look at Cas’s squinty eyes, messy mop of hair and the red imprints on his arms. Cas yawns, and Dean feels a wave of _normal_ fill him.

Yup. Nothing’s different. Nothing to worry about.

 

* * *

 

Given for how long the universe has been pulling strings already, it all comes to a halt surprisingly quickly.

Dean’s given up on hauling Chuck the two cups of coffee everyday – instead, Chuck comes to sit with them during lunch now, adamant that he gets his promised coffee, and defeated, Dean diligently pays for the two cups. (At this point, Dean is sure that Chuck is 90 per cent coffee, 10 per cent paper.)

Chuck is an odd addition to their group. He sits between Pam and Ash, because no one should get between Anna and Jo, nor Cas and Ash and their inscrutable reading material. Because there are now seven people sitting around a table that is designed for six, everyone needs to sit a bit closer. Anna and Jo don’t mind – they practically lean against each other, which is sickeningly cute – but Dean can’t stop his mind from going overdrive every time he notices that his elbow grazes against Cas’s arm, or every time his feet accidentally knock against Cas’s. Besides making them all closer (literally, ha), Chuck becomes surprisingly fast friends with Ash. Though, in the end, it’s not that surprising: their minds seem to work on some odd, stratospheric level that others can’t conceive.

Dean’s tense these days. He keeps flipping through Chuck’s notebook, trying to find some sort of clue there, but there’s nothing but more embarrassment for him, so he abandons that. He could probably recite some scenes from memory by now, which is actually worrying, and he would completely forget to do his homework, if it weren’t for Cas dragging him up to his room every Friday and sitting him down to get some work done. Cas is adamant about doing his homework on Fridays, so begrudgingly, Dean does his homework as well, because there’s not much to do in Cas’s room while he waits for Cas to finish. Sometimes, he just stops and stares at the ceiling, or at Cas, or out of the window, but Cas doesn’t comment on this, so he doesn’t worry about it too much.

The last week of November arrives, and Dean couldn’t be happier, because he only needs to put up with two days of school until fall break. On Tuesday, the last day before the break, no one bothers to concentrate that much on schoolwork, not even Cas. They spend most of their lunch hour talking about sleeping for three days and doing nothing, and Cas recounts the tale of Gabriel drawing dots on himself with red pen to avoid going back to school after fall break. It didn’t work, because he was fifteen, and their mother informed Gabriel that he’d had chicken pox when he’d been four. Dean spends much of this time staring at Castiel’s profile and watching his Adam’s apple bob up and down, and doesn’t register it when the conversation drifts elsewhere.

The next thing Dean hears is Chuck whining, “The tension is killing me,” and Dean instantly flips.

“If you don’t want us to end together, then maybe you should stop writing!” he says, a panicky edge to his voice. Chuck looks unimpressed.

“I was talking about my headache.”

Dean feels all of them stare at him, and he very much wants to disappear into thin air. But the worst of all is Cas’s pointed stare – because he knows that Cas _knows_ what’s going through his head.

Dean manages to avoid Cas for the rest of the day, but when the final bell rings, Dean can’t get away from the lockers quick enough, and he’s pinned to the spot by Cas’s eyes that clearly say, “Like it or not, we’re going to talk about this.”

Dean resignedly follows Cas to his car. He got a ride from Cas this morning, so he doesn’t have his bike, and the walk home is a long one. He’d rather take the few uncomfortable minutes in the car. Besides, Cas knows him better than anyone, and has been able to put Dean’s mind to rest for how many times since this whole thing happened. Maybe he’ll be able to calm Dean down again.

The drive is silent for the first two minutes, but when they stop at a red light, Cas shifts slightly, and Dean knows the speech is coming.

“Dean,” he says. Dean sighs.

“I know, I know.”

“I just don’t understand what it is that you’re so…” Cas searches for a word, “afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” Dean argues, and Cas changes tactics. The light changes, and they move again.

“Dean, this is not very complicated,” Cas says.

“Yes it is!” Dean snaps.

“It’s really not, Dean,” Cas says, and he suddenly sounds tired. He takes a breath, and Dean’s heart already knows that it’s supposed to miss a beat, even if his brain hasn’t yet caught up. “I like you, Dean.”

Dean falls into a void.

“I like you, Dean,” Cas repeats. His gaze slides to the floor, before he suddenly lifts his head and looks straight into Dean’s eyes, like he doesn’t have a thing to be afraid of. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Dean’s speechless. He’s absolutely void of any words. His head is empty; there’s nothing for him to feel.

Cas looks at him, and for the first time, Dean notices how deep that look really goes. How many layers there are to that one look which may come across as bored, but which really has a multitude of alternate universes trapped in it.

“I don’t know what to say,” Dean finally gets out.

“You don’t have to say anything, Dean.” Cas looks tired, but he’s clearly determined. “But I’d like to know—do you—Just say yes or no.”

Dean takes a look at Cas’s blue eyes, his messy dark-brown hair, the t-shirt that is two sizes too big for him and the faded jeans. It’s just… Cas. It’s Cas. Nothing has changed.

“No.”


	6. Act III, Scene 1

Dean spends the next two days laying on his bed, ignoring everything, and listening to Bon Jovi’s CDs on repeat. (He’s not proud of that fact.) It’s a blessing in disguise that this happens during the fall recess; at least Dean doesn’t have to pretend to be sick in order to avoid everyone. On the third day, he moves from his bedroom to the treehouse, and that’s where he stays, cocooned in blankets and surrounded by comics, cookies, marshmallows and hot chocolate.

He refuses to admit that anything’s wrong. In return, nobody asks. His mom and dad leave him alone after a preliminary round of questions, but when he just mumbles something unintelligible about faith and universe, his parents decide to leave him be.

On the fourth day, he gets a visitor to his treehousian haven. Dean sees a dark mop of hair peek from the hatch, and then Cas is suddenly standing before him.

“Dean,” Cas says. Dean can’t decipher his tone of voice, but at least it’s not angry. Dean mutters a hello without looking at Cas.

“Dean, you’re sulking.”

“So?”

“Dean, I’m the one being rejected here. Why are you sulking?”

”You’re rejected?” Dean asks, and his voice might crack just a little in a completely non-embarrassing way, if there even is such a thing.

“I’m just saying, me angsting would make sense. You sitting in the treehouse and eating cookies with milk, however, is absurd.”

“I’m allowed to sulk a little,” Dean laments. “My best friend has been in love with me since god-knows-when.” He offers a cookie to Cas, who takes it with a shake of his head and sits down next to him. Dean takes off one of the two blankets around him, and offers it to Cas. He takes it wordlessly. “That is such a cliché that even Chuck’s big gay gospel knew better than to include that.”

“I guess there’s truth to some clichés,” Cas mutters. He munches on the cookie slowly, and sloppily arranges the blanket on his shoulders.

“How long?” Dean asks then. He doesn’t need to elaborate.

Cas shifts a bit. “I honestly don’t know. It’s been so gradual, growing over the years. I think I first realized it when I was fourteen, though.”

Dean blinks. Four years. Four years, and he never noticed or cared.

“You never told me,” Dean says in a small voice.

“There never seemed to be a right time. And, then, this happened, and you were so adamantly against it, so…”

Dean recalls all the times he freaked out over the universe pushing him and Cas together, or how he acted in the locker room all those months ago, or how he spent an entire day writing down notes for himself so he absolutely wouldn’t act gay towards Cas, and suddenly, Dean is ashamed.

He’s been acting like a selfish child during this whole thing. Cas has been nothing but level-headed, mature and sensible about this, and what did Dean do? He threw it all in Cas’s face and treated it as a fate worse than death. He doesn’t know how Cas has been able to stand it, listening to all of Dean’s rants while simultaneously trying to find the right moment to confess his feelings.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Dean says. “I’m sorry, Cas. I was such an ass to you.”

“Maybe a bit,” Cas says, and Dean snorts.

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean it, Cas. You’re a much better person than I am.”

“Don’t,” Cas softly says.

“But I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Cas says. It’s silly, but Dean actually believes this. He trusts Cas with his whole being. “I won’t act any differently. It’s up to you how we go on from here.”

Dean doesn’t know what he wants. He realizes that he should probably agree and say that they can go back to just being best friends, because that’s what they’ve always done, but it doesn’t feel like it’s really an option. He’ll always know that for Cas, there is something more in every touch, in every word, and he doesn’t know how to react to that.

How do you even react to someone loving you? Is there some sort of social protocol that determines how you’re supposed to change when that happens?

Dean doesn’t say any of this out loud. He just nods and says, “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

After their conversation, Dean should feel better.

He doesn’t. He still feels like the most insignificant maggot on earth, and the worst thing is, he can’t figure out _why_.

He feels bad for Cas, obviously. He feels bad that his best friend has been forced into this situation, and he feels bad that he’s been acting so childishly. But there is also an insistent, lonely thought that keeps telling him that he feels bad, because he’s also been forced into this. He’s been thrust in the middle of a hurricane that keeps ripping open his walls and takes him on a ride through feelings that he never would’ve explored otherwise.

Dean pulls himself together and tries to act normally from then on, but things are strained between him and Cas. Cas acts just like he promised: as if nothing ever happened. He’s the picture perfect best friend, and Dean feels horrible that Cas needs to pretend like that. It’s a startling discovery for him: there are so many things that he thought he knew about Cas, and he _doesn’t_ , because he’s never paid enough attention.

The break ends, and December starts. It’s probably a good thing that the finals start to draw close, because Cas starts to pay attention to studying more than usual, which gives Dean a reason to not spend as much time with him as he normally would. He feels bad about using this excuse, but the guilt at least motivates him to study for real.

It’s funny how much of an impact Cas has on Dean’s life even when he’s not there. Dean sulks alone in his room when he realizes this, and then goes downstairs to do the dishes. His mother enters the kitchen just when he’s done scrubbing away the huge grease stains from a pot.

Mary takes one look at Dean and her eyes widen. “Honey, are you feeling alright?”

“Peachy,” Dean sarcastically says.

“It’s just… you’ve never done the dishes voluntarily before,” Mary says. Then she smiles, walks over and ruffles Dean’s hair. “Well, whatever happened, it’s obviously a good thing! Thank you, dear.”

“Nobody understands my plight,” Dean whines when Mary exits the room. He feels like he’s been doing that a lot lately.

He spends the rest of the weekend taking turns studying and playing _Tekken_ with Sam. It’s therapeutic, because Sam doesn’t ask him why he’s sulking.

Until he does, in his own way.

“You’re sulking,” Sam says when he wins the round.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Dean says.

“It’s not my fault that you just suck at _Tekken_.”

“I do not suck,” Dean mumbles. “I’m just distracted.”

“Some girl turned you down and you’re distracted?”

Dean coughs. “There is no girl.”

“Oh.” Sam chooses another character, and their fight on the screen continues. “You get all the girls. It’s not fair. I’m never gonna meet someone.”

For the one and only time since his life turned into a series of uncomfortable situations and truths, Dean wishes that his life was a little more like fiction and Sam was that freakishly insightful little brother who’d talk some sense into him. As it is, Sam is a 14-year-old with an enormous crush on his biology teacher – not that Dean can blame him, because Suzie Iser is _fine_ – and with no regard for anyone’s problems but his own teen drama.

“You’re gonna meet someone,” Dean says, and how the hell did this turn into Dean comforting Sam and not the other way around?

“Yeah, right,” Sam says sullenly, and Dean rolls his eyes. Dean is right, though: six years from now, during a crowded lecture, Sam will sit beside a cute blonde girl named Jess, who will ask him to borrow a pencil. Even further, twelve years from now, Sam will stand on the altar with his very-soon-to-be-wife Jess, and Dean will stand on the side and try to pretend that he’s not crying, because a best man just does not cry at weddings. Their job is to make fun of the groom and woo their way into the dresses of lonely bridesmaids, not to blubber like an old grandmother who thought she’d never live to see the day.

But right then, Sam is just an annoying little brother who doesn’t know how much Dean is suffering. Dean aggressively wins the match and goes back to sulkily studying in his room.

 

* * *

 

The finals week happens, and even Dean is distracted enough by his exams to forget his sulking for a minute. But after that, when the semester is done, Dean suddenly realizes that he doesn’t want it to be over, because now he can’t go to school every day and avoid Cas there.

Cas is still acting like nothing is out of the ordinary, and it’s making Dean want to scream to the whole world, “but you’re in love with me!” Even their group of friends doesn’t seem to be aware that anything has happened, because no one comments on it. Jo doesn’t tease him and then offer him a shoulder to cry on, Pam doesn’t say anything unnervingly wise, Chuck and Ash keep quiet, and even Anna doesn’t ask him what happened. They make plans to see a movie during winter recess, trade Christmas gifts, and that’s it.

So, Christmas comes. And goes. Dean sends Cas a text message on Christmas morning that says “Merry Christmas,” and gets back one just like it, but Cas has attached a photo of Gabriel sleeping on the presents under the tree to it. Dean had gotten Cas his Christmas present months ago – _A Brief History Of Time_ , buried in a boxful of chocolates – and when Dean opens his gift from Cas, he doesn’t know what to expect. It’s a cookbook, with recipes for sweets, and with Cas’s scribbling inside, “I expect pie the next time I come around.” Dean smiles at it, and then finally admits to himself that he desperately needs to talk to someone.

But Dean doesn’t know who to talk to. He doesn’t dare disturb Jo – she’s probably snuggling Anna right now and not taking calls until hell freezes over – and he can’t talk to Cas, because the whole problem _is_ Cas.

Who knows Cas the best, besides Jo, and besides Anna?

Dean logically arrives to the conclusion that he should talk to Gabriel. He proceeds with this plan on the day before New Year’s Eve, because he knows that Gabriel is undoubtedly at the Collins household, planning the biggest New Year’s Eve celebration he possibly can.

Dean walks to Cas’s house – it takes him closer to twenty minutes, but there’s snow on the ground and the air is crisp, so it doesn’t bother him that much. He’s shivering by the time he makes it to Cas’s house, and the shivers don’t go away when Mrs. Collins opens the door.

“Oh, Dean!” she smiles. “Merry belated Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas,” he says.

“Come in, Cas is in his room.”

“Uh, actually,” Dean hesitates, “I think… I uh, need to speak to Gabe?”

Mrs. Collins seems surprised, but recovers quickly. “Of course. I’ll go get him.”

Gabriel is, as Dean predicted, preparing for his New Year’s Party. He’s in the kitchen, baking, and his pink, frilly apron is covered in spots of flour and sugar. Despite literally making candy right then – toffee, it seems – he’s sucking on a candy cane.

“Dean-o!” Gabriel says. “Not the greatest time, I’m afraid. This isn’t done yet.” Gabriel stops fighting with the toffee, and leans over the kitchen counter towards Dean. He points at Dean with the candy cone. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you about Cas.”

Gabriel raises his brows. “Okay?”

“So, uh, I…”

“You what now?”

“If—if I were to, you know, askoutyourbrother, you wouldn’t kill me, right?”

Gabriel’s mouth hangs open, and disgustingly, there’s saliva dripping from candy cane he’s been sucking onto the floor.

“What does that have to do with me?” Gabe asks.

“You’re… not gonna give me the ‘hurt him and you’re dead, now go get him’ speech?”

Dean might be imagining it, but Gabriel seems to turn slightly green.

“Dean-o, read whatever trashy Harlequin novels in your free time, but don’t drag me into your drama. I’d really, really rather not think about my brother’s sex life. Or yours, for that matter.”

Dean comes to a conclusion. The conclusion is that real life does not have a neatly written plot.

Apparently, no one is going to tell him that he’s been afraid for no reason. Apparently, no one is going to take him gently by the hand and tell him that he’s been hung up on Cas for far longer than the universe has been hinting at him, and no one is going to give him the “you love Cas, you idiot, now go and apologize to him and sweep him off his feet with your magnificent kissing skills” speech. In fact, no one even cares an ounce if they end up together or not. The only ones invested in this drama are Dean and Cas themselves. Therefore, Dean finally concludes on his own that he’s an idiot, that he actually _likes_ likes Cas, might even be a little in love with his best friend, and he should really just go and apologize to Cas before things go even further to shit.

Dean realizes this all while Gabriel’s still warily looking at him. It’s a life changing moment, and he’s having it in front of a candy cane sucking Gabriel.

Well, they do say that reality is unrealistic.

“So, Cas is in his room?” Dean asks, going for suave but missing by a mile.

Dean has been in Cas’s room many times over the years, but this is the first time that he’s nervous to go in there. Even during the times that they fought, Dean didn’t have any hang-ups about walking into Cas’s room and apologize, or vice verse. Now, though, Dean feels nervous, and for the first time in a decade, he knocks on Cas’s door.

There’s a muffled “Come in,” and Dean braces himself and opens the door.

“Dean,” Cas says, surprised. Dean doesn’t know what he expected – Cas in his grey pajamas, with red-rimmed eyes from crying and hugging a pillow? – but Cas looks exactly like he usually does. He’s wearing a black t-shirt that says, “resistance is futile (if 1 < ohm)” and jeans, looking just like he does every day at school. The only difference is that he’s not wearing socks, and that his hair might be a tad messier than usual, but otherwise, he looks just like himself.

And Dean’s pretty sure that he loves it.

Cas gestures for Dean to enter the room, so Dean closes the door behind him, and then nervously stops in front of it. Cas, sitting by his desk, raises a brow, and patiently waits for Dean to talk first.

“Look, um,” Dean says, “Uh… about that… universe… get-together plot… thingy…”

Cas doesn’t say anything. It’s a bit unnerving, but Dean goes on, “I’m—I’m sorry, okay? I think I was just afraid, and, and, _angry_ , that something would force us like that.”

Cas is still staring at him, amazement in his eyes, but nothing more. Dean doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad sign.

“But the thing is,” Dean says, then stops. He takes a breath and starts over. “Look, the universe can go fuck itself. I wanna be with you despite whatever cosmic plans someone up there has come up with. It has nothing to do with that. I just…” Dean gulps, as if he’s said enough already. “I just want you.”

Cas hasn’t said a thing during all this. Dean feels stripped bare under Cas’s stare, like Cas is analyzing him and calculating if there’s anything worthwhile there. And then, wordlessly, Cas rises from his seat and takes three steps towards Dean.

“Dean, you’re an idiot,” Castiel says, and then he grabs Dean by the neck and kisses him.

It’s… not a good kiss. In fact, it’s anything but good. It’s the wrong angle, Dean’s wholly unprepared, and Cas is using more force than necessary, making it more of an awkward slide of lips against each other than an actual kiss. It lasts for about three seconds, before Dean slips away and starts to laugh. The whole thing’s just absurd, and he can’t believe that after all this, he’s here, and he’s kissing his best friend, and it’s _that_ bad.

“Well, that was awkward,” Dean giggles.

“Shut up,” Cas says, and undeterred, he yanks Dean into another kiss.

The second kiss is much better, and after one awkward second, they both relax into it. Planets don’t shift and a choir doesn’t magically start to sing in the background and there are no fireworks anywhere, but it doesn’t matter. It feels like coming home, finding something that was always supposed to be there.

They hold on to each other, and when the kiss ends, another begins, and then another, until they can’t even tell how many kisses they’ve traded.

It’s perfect.


	7. Act III, Scene 2

Dean hadn’t originally thought he’d go to Gabriel’s New Year’s Party – because he was busy sulking according to his original time table – but Cas basically tells him that he’s invited all of their friends over, so unless Dean wants to crash Meg’s New Year’s Party, he needs to come. Dean pretends to be reluctant and coaxes three kisses out of Cas this way.

So, the next day, Dean spends three hours decorating the Collins residence while Gabriel barks orders at him – Gabe can be very intimidating when there’s fun on the line – and Balthazar and Anna keep messing up the decorations just to get Gabriel riled up. It takes Mrs. Collins telling them to stop before Gabe calms down, and two kisses from Cas before Dean stops muttering under his breath.

Jo is one of the first guests to arrive, and she immediately leaps into Anna’s awaiting arms and kisses her full on the mouth. Dean feels like he’s watching something so intimate that he shouldn’t be witnessing it. Cas smiles when he sees Dean watching them, and presses a soft kiss to Dean’s cheek as he passes – it goes unseen by most, but the kiss that occurs right afterwards when Dean chases Cas down does not.

“I’m traumatized for life,” Jo complains when she sees Cas pressing Dean against the kitchen counter and kissing him within an inch of his life.

“Sorry about that,” Dean squeaks, trying to disentangle himself from Cas.

“No, you’re not,” Jo says. She’s right.

The funny thing about that night is that the universe apparently decides to take revenge on Dean for stalling for so long, because someone drops his drink right on Dean’s neck just when he’s about to kiss Cas at midnight.

Dean fumes, because the universe was supposed to _help_ him, not cockblock him. And that scene was right out of Chuck’s writing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what more do we have to do?” Dean asks after he’s cleaned up his shirt. They’re all sitting in the living room, having claimed the couch and the floor before it, so they can sit in the same formation as in school. It wasn’t planned, either – they just took their usual places. “The show’s over! We’re successfully together! Roll credits!”

“I think there’s a little more to a relationship than just ending up together,” Chuck pipes up, and it takes Dean an alarmingly short amount of time to put together what Chuck is insinuating.

“Dude,” Dean recoils in horror, “we’ve been together for a day. _A day_. There will not be a sex scene just for some bastard’s cosmic amusement.”

“I could give you a hand job under the table,” Cas says, and Dean squeaks in embarrassment. “Maybe that would satisfy the gods of comedy.”

“More like the gods of perversion,” Jo mutters.

“Can we please agree to keep this discussion PG-13?” Anna asks, looking paler than usual. “Because Cas, you’re my cousin and I love you, but I really, really don’t want to think about you two getting it on together.”

Jo takes her hand. “Motion passes. And there was much rejoicing.”

“Seriously, though,” Dean mutters, “How much longer do we have to put up with this?”

Chuck scratches his neck. This would go unnoticed, if it wasn’t so very noticeable.

“How’s your head, Chuck?” Cas suddenly asks. Chuck shifts.

“It’s… fine, thanks.”

“No new headaches?”

“No, I haven’t had headaches in a while.”

Dean blinks. “You… what?”

“No new visions, either. They stopped a day or two ago. I guess the universe was just really concerned about you two getting together or something.”

“Great,” Dean grumbles, because he realizes that he can’t blame the universe for all the weird things in his life after this. Including getting tequila down his shirt on New Year’s Eve. “Remind me to send a fruit basket to it as a thank you.”

Chuck sighs. “I kind of miss it, though. Now I’ve got to come up with my own plots. You think anyone would be interested in a story about two friends who are forced to confront their feelings?”

“You are _not_ publishing our story,” Dean says.

“Maybe it’d work as a fanfic,” Chuck muses, not even listening to Dean. “Becky would know.”

“So, if this is the ending,” Ash says, “does that mean that there will be a ‘pair the spares’ moment?” He winks at Pamela, who just laughs.

“Please. As if.”

“I’m single, too,” Chuck mumbles.

“Sweetie, with all due respect, I really don’t want a novel of my life.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Chuck says.

“No one will publish that kind of pornography,” Dean says. Pamela swats him in the arm, and everything seems as usual.

 

* * *

 

At three a.m., the party winds down. Dean’s too tired to walk home, so it seems logical to just stay and sleep over in Cas’s bed.

Well, maybe he just wants to stay and sleep in Cas’s bed.

They flop down on the bed, both in their t-shirt and boxers, and Dean doesn’t know where that certainty comes from, but he’s not afraid one bit. It feels right, to be lying next to Cas, to share the same space and feel each other’s warmth. They lie on their backs, just looking at each other, with their hands occasionally touching. Despite being completely innocent, it’s the most intimate thing Dean’s ever done.

Cas turns to his side, and slowly puts his arm around Dean. Dean takes the hint, and turns to his other side, and then, without wasting time, Cas is hugging Dean from behind. His legs slot comfortably through Dean’s, and Dean relaxes into Cas’s hold.

Dean snorts. “You said you didn’t want to cuddle me.”

“I lied,” Cas says cheerfully, and it makes Dean struggle for breath, because Cas is saying the words against his neck. Cas’s breath comes in warm puffs, and they send comfortable shivers down Dean’s spine. Cas’s hand is resting against Dean’s heart, and Dean puts his own over it.

“Do you think I need to get that ‘property of Dean Winchester’ tattoo, now?”

“Cas, that is a text-book example on ruining the moment.” Dean kisses Cas’s fingers. “You’re lucky that I love you.”

Cas kisses Dean’s neck in reply, and for once, Dean doesn’t need Chuck to translate what that means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Life is a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."_
> 
>  
> 
> ...yeah, it's cheesy, but so's the whole fic. If you read this far, please consider leaving kudos/comments, and thank you a lot! <3
> 
> I'm also on tumblr, [here](http://justkeeponwriting.tumblr.com) or [here](http://but-im-just-amy.tumblr.com), if you want to say hi! I won't bite.


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